Leo’s expression transformed from mild curiosity to stark panic as he opened the door to his hotel suite.
‘Is Teddy okay? Has something else happened?’ he said in a jumbled rush.
I held up my hand. ‘Terence is fine. He was released from hospital this afternoon and, as far as we know, he went straight to a friend’s house.’
‘That’s where he is then.’ Dunlow pulled the door from his younger son’s grasp.
‘He didn’t inform you of his new arrangements?’ Juliet asked in mock innocence.
Dunlow’s eyes narrowed. ‘He did not.’
‘Might we come in?’ I asked, keen to avoid a scene in a hotel corridor. ‘We have a request to make of Leo.’
‘Me?’ Leo stepped back, allowing us inside. His father led us through to the adjoining sitting room, confirming my suspicion that Leo’s temporary accommodation was at least twice the size of my maisonette.
‘Following on from new evidence, we have reason to believe someone could be targeting your family. Perhaps the same person who killed Melanie.’
I didn’t look directly at Dunlow as I spoke, busying myself with extracting my notepad as we sat down on sofas designed with expense rather than comfort in mind. I didn’t know if he would be smug or alarmed. I had no resource to deal with either.
‘Who is it?’ Leo perched on the edge of his seat, his bandaged hands plucking at the fraying knees of his jeans.
‘We can’t say.’ Wouldn’t say. If Karl or Jordan turned out to be innocent, I didn’t want to have acquired a new enemy for either of them.
Leo looked between me and Juliet. ‘How can I help?’
I’d come into contact with a lot of different families while on the force, meeting them at times of great pressure. It revealed their true nature. Often, families moved like starlings in a dark wave; grief, anger and frustration displayed in patterns that became familiar during each case.
Terence, despite his differences, was an echo of his father. He was unhelpful and self-serving, had the makings of an entitled bully. Leo was different. He’d lied, but only because he was told to. His eagerness to help shone through his unwavering gaze.
‘We’d like to use your social media to lure someone out,’ I said. Juliet and I had planned how to explain this to the Dunlows. We didn’t want them gaining any inkling of who we thought might respond. We weren’t sure how they would react, especially if they discovered Terence was in the running, and there was still a cloud of suspicion hanging over Dunlow.
‘Here.’ Leo pulled his phone out of his hoodie and tapped rapidly to unlock it. ‘What do you need?’
One glance at Dunlow confirmed he wasn’t as trusting as his son, but since we were taking his allegations seriously, there wasn’t much he could do.
‘What do you use the most?’ I asked, scooting forward to look at the small screen. The background was the shot of Melanie that tipped us off to Leo’s connection with her; she smiled shyly while his blazer clad arm reached into the frame. ‘Where would you post about something you were going to do?’
‘I don’t use any of them much.’ Leo’s eyes flicked to his father. Apparently social media was another item to add to the list of things Dunlow disapproved of, alongside homosexuality and telling the truth to the police. ‘The easiest one for someone to find would be my Instagram.’
Leo tapped on the app and navigated to his profile. The screen filled with pictures of landscapes, a mixture of exotic and the woods near his home.
‘This is brilliant.’ I pulled my phone out of my pocket and showed him the photo I’d found during a quick Google search. It was the same aesthetic as the rest of his posts. I airdropped it over to Leo’s phone, where he cropped it and added a dusky filter.
He tipped his head to the side, his auburn hair falling over his forehead. ‘I recognise this. Isn’t it the old burial place near the house?’
‘Do you go there sometimes?’ I asked.
Leo nodded, and I had to fight to contain a broad smile. This was perfect. If Leo recognised it, chances were our suspects would too.
‘That’s the place.’ I put away my phone and showed Leo a page of my notepad. ‘These are the details we need in the post, but it would be best to put it into your own words.’
Leo bit his tongue between his teeth as he tapped at his phone screen. Dunlow lounged in his seat, gazing out of the window. The early evening darkness was broken by the lights of boats in the harbour.
‘Done.’ Leo tilted his phone towards me and Juliet. ‘Is that okay?’
‘That’s great.’ Juliet wiggled her fingers. ‘Can you send it out to all of your subscribers?’
Leo bit his lip to hide a smile. ‘Sure.’
‘Please don’t tell anyone about this,’ I warned. ‘It can’t leave this room.’
Frowns graced the men’s faces, unnatural on Leo and far too familiar on his father.
‘Stay here tomorrow morning.’ I waited for Dunlow to turn from the window and acknowledge my request with a single dip of his head. ‘We’ll update you on whether or not we’ve been successful.’
Juliet and I stood. Dunlow stayed sitting, leaving Leo to show us out of the suite.
‘I hope you catch them,’ he said, before easing the door shut behind us.
I struggled to identify my churning rush of emotions as I followed Juliet over to the lift. I was pleased my plan had worked so far, that Leo had been cooperative and Dunlow hadn’t been actively unhelpful. But under that swirled a sickening mixture of regret and dread.
Juliet wasn’t the one pushing this forward; it was me. If no one turned up tomorrow, I would have wasted time and precious resources for nothing. But if someone did turn up, that was on me too. I couldn’t decide who I would be more gutted to catch on that ancient hill: Karl, Jordan or Terence. Yet, if none of them appeared, we would be no closer to finding Melanie’s killer. The moment when we would have to close this case was ticking closer. This was our last shot.
‘We should pick up something to eat on the way back to the station,’ Juliet said, as we walked into the lift. ‘I fancy chips.’
‘Whatever you want.’
One sharp look from Juliet confirmed that my dull tone and uncharacteristic disinterest in food had been noted, but she didn’t push me to talk. I was glad. There wasn’t a thing I wanted to say, not about this case or the events of my past that may have caused me to make a mess of it.