33

They tracked him down at a friend’s house. Chris’s mother had told them he was studying there and strongly implied she would rather he wasn’t interrupted. It was as if she had forgotten that a young girl – his girlfriend – was missing. The other boy quickly offered to go up to his room so they could speak to Chris privately in the lounge. He sat down heavily on the sofa. ‘What do you want?’

‘We want to know why you lied, Chris,’ Beth told the boy.

‘Lied? I didn’t lie to you. Lied about what?’

‘You said you didn’t leave the house the night Alice disappeared,’ Beth reminded him, ‘but you did. You were seen walking up the road towards the school.’

‘Who saw me? Who says that they saw me?’ he demanded, and Beth noticed how quickly he had modified his answer, though it was not quite quick enough.

‘A credible witness,’ Beth told him. ‘And I suspect they weren’t the only one to see you. If I knocked on every door between your house and the school, do you think I wouldn’t find at least one other person who saw you go by?’

Chris appeared to consider this and must have concluded the odds were against him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly. ‘I didn’t mean to lie.’

‘But you did, Chris,’ said Black, ‘and we’d like to know why.’

‘Why do you think?’

‘You tell me.’

‘I’m not an idiot,’ he said. ‘I watch TV, all those true-crime shows. The cops always think it’s the husband or the boyfriend who’s done it.’

‘That’s because it often is.’

‘Yeah, well, not this time. When that detective, Ferguson, first came round, he was coming at me with all the questions like that.’ He clicked his fingers three times in quick succession to denote the speed. ‘I panicked a bit and I said I hadn’t been up to the school. I knew I wasn’t responsible for Alice disappearing and I figured she’d show up eventually. I just wanted him off my back.’

‘You admit, then, that you did go up there?’ asked Beth.

‘I’ve just said, haven’t I?’

‘And you saw Alice?’ she persisted.

‘No,’ he said vehemently. ‘I couldn’t find her, and I didn’t want to hang around outside the school like a wallad.’

‘A what?’ asked Beth.

‘An idiot.’

Beth wasn’t even a decade older than Chris and his friends but sometimes even she couldn’t understand them.

‘Are you lying to us again, Chris?’

‘No, no. Believe me, I’m not.’

Black shrugged. ‘You lied before. Why should we believe you now?’

‘I told you why I lied.’

‘And I’m not convinced. You’re saying you walked up on the off-chance?’ asked Black.

‘It’s only a ten-minute walk,’ Chris explained. ‘I figured I’d see her coming the other way.’

‘What if she got the bus?’

‘Alice only gets one if it’s raining or really dark. She likes to walk. It’s safe if you stick to the main roads.’

‘But you didn’t see her,’ asked Beth. She didn’t know whether to believe him or not. Her frustration fed her anger towards the boy for wasting everyone’s time. If he was lying about this, too, and they could prove it somehow, then Chris would be in big trouble. It would look more and more likely that, once again, it was the boyfriend who was responsible for the fate of a young girl. If Chris was telling the truth now, though, and he hadn’t seen Alice on his way to the school, then the window in which she disappeared had to have been a very small one. ‘What did you do?’

‘I turned back and went home.’

‘What time was this?’

‘I don’t know exactly, but it was around nine o’clock.’

‘The same time Alice was seen leaving the school,’ said Beth.

‘Then she was later than usual.’

‘Why would that be, do you think?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe she got talking to someone.’

‘Who?’

‘I dunno. I don’t, really.’

‘Why did you go up there? To hold her hand?’ asked Black. ‘Or was there some other reason?’

‘Lately, she’s been distant. I was worried. I wanted to talk to her about it.’ Then he said, ‘I wanted to talk to her about us.’

‘You said she wasn’t cooling things off.’

‘I didn’t think she was.’ He corrected himself: ‘I hoped she wasn’t.’

‘But you were worried she might be,’ said Beth.

‘I don’t know.’ When she gave him a questioning look, he admitted, ‘A bit.’

‘Were you worried about anything else, Chris?’ she asked him.

‘Like what?’

‘That she might have been seeing someone else?’

‘No.’

‘You said that very quickly.’

‘That’s because it never crossed my mind.’

‘You sure about that?’ asked Black. ‘She went off with your best friend.’

‘We’d broken up, then. She wouldn’t cheat on me.’

‘How do you know that?’

He didn’t give her a reason. ‘Alice would not cheat on me.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Did you see anyone else up there?’

‘Like who?’

‘Anyone – friends, teachers, passers-by, anybody who looked out of the ordinary.’

‘I didn’t see anyone except an old bloke with a dog. There’s nothing else up there except the cottages, the allotments and the school. You wouldn’t go up there unless you were visiting someone.’

‘No one hanging about just waiting?’ asked Beth. ‘Leaning on a fence or sitting in a parked car, maybe – someone who could have offered Alice a lift?’ It still seemed the only way to explain her sudden disappearance.

He shook his head. ‘There were some cars parked on the way up but nobody sitting in one, as far as I know.’

‘What about right by the allotments?’ asked Beth. ‘Cast your mind back. Were there any cars there?’

He must have seen some urgency in her eyes, because he seemed to focus for a while, then he finally said, ‘There was one car. I remember it was blocking the lane to the allotments, which was weird. I had to walk on the road to get by.’

‘Are you sure there was no one in it?’

‘I thought there wasn’t, but it had dark windows.’

‘Tinted ones?’ He nodded. ‘So you couldn’t see in?’

‘Yeah.’

‘There might have been someone in it, then?’ asked Black.

‘I suppose there could have been.’

‘What colour was this car, Chris?’ asked Beth.

‘Red.’

Beth and Black exchanged a look. The tip-off had been accurate and they both knew it could be a breakthrough. If Chris was telling the truth about not seeing Alice on the way up to the school, then she could have disappeared within yards of the school gate. Was the driver of the car responsible? Could Alice have even been in the car when Chris walked by it looking for her?

‘Make and model?’ demanded Black.

‘It was one of those sporty cars, you know? Maybe a Mazda. I don’t know.’

‘An MX-5?’ he asked.

‘Maybe.’ But they could tell he wasn’t sure.

‘Do you think you’ll be able to track them down?’ asked Chris.

‘The owner of the car? Possibly, but it won’t be easy without a make and model,’ said Black pointedly.

‘I’m not making it up,’ said Chris. ‘The car was there.’

‘Then we’ll find them,’ said Beth. ‘Maybe they saw something. Perhaps they saw Alice.’

And maybe they took her.

After catching Alice’s boyfriend in a lie, it seemed a good time to confront her ex about his version of events. Tony had said he left the sixth form voluntarily. He hadn’t mentioned spraying a spiteful message about Alice on the school wall for everyone to see. The boy would be easier to find, too, since he never went out and it was only a short drive to his house.

‘What do you think?’ Beth asked Black, following the interview with Chris.

‘We’ll put the word out that we are trying to trace a red, sporty-looking car that was seen parked by the entrance to the allotments. See if anyone admits it’s theirs or reports someone else as the owner. It’s frustrating, though, because hardly anyone saw anything. We still haven’t traced Happy Harry, who is one of the few people who was definitely in the area around the time Alice left the school, but, since he is an alcoholic, he might not even remember what he saw that night. Even Chris didn’t see him.’

‘I meant, what do you think about Chris lying to us like that?’

‘He lied to a police officer, which isn’t good, but he’s not the first to do that,’ said Black, ‘and Ferguson can be a bit intimidating. Maybe he’s telling the truth – he lied because he panicked.’

‘And if he isn’t telling the truth?’

‘If he did meet Alice from school, no one saw it, so nobody can contradict his version of events – so far, that is.’

‘Let’s say they did meet, though. Perhaps there was a row,’ offered Beth, ‘and it got out of hand.’

‘He’s the jealous type, so he lashed out?’

‘Exactly.’

‘There’s just one problem with that theory, and it’s the same one we keep coming up against.’

‘There’s no body?’

‘Chris walked up there, and the land around the school has been searched. Could he really have killed her without anyone seeing? How would he remove the body from the scene without a car? He could hardly bury her with his bare hands.’

Beth agreed. ‘It just doesn’t add up.’

‘I’m not saying Chris is in the clear, but there’s not enough to make him a suspect.’

‘Right now, if Nash can be believed, I’m more intrigued by the missing twenty minutes between Alice leaving the darkroom and walking away from the school,’ said Beth. ‘I want to know where she went, who she saw and what she did.’