“I told you, I don’t know.”

“And I don’t believe you.”

“Well, that’s your problem.”

“No, Liz. It’s your problem. And it’s going to be a very big one if you don’t tell us the truth soon.”

“Maybe it was Ryan,” Kevin Templeton suggested.

Liz looked confused. “Ryan? What do you mean?”

“Well,” Templeton went on, “let me tell you what I think happened.” Annie gave him the nod. “I think Luke went to your flat after he’d been in the market square—”

“No. I told you. He didn’t come that day.”

“Let me finish.”

“But it’s not true! You’re making it up.”

“Be quiet,” Annie said. “Listen to what DC Templeton has to say.”

Liz flopped back in her chair. “Whatever.”

“Luke came to your place after he’d been in the market square. It was late afternoon. Ryan was out and the two of you thought you had time for a roll on the bed. He was a good-looking kid, fit, looked older than his age—”

“No! That didn’t happen. It wasn’t like that!”

“But Ryan came home and caught you at it. The two of them got in a scuffle and one way or another Luke ended up dead. I’m sure Ryan didn’t mean to kill him, but you had a body on your hands. What could you do? You waited until dark and then you loaded Luke’s body into the car and took it to Hallam Tarn, where Ryan hoisted him up the wall and dropped him over. He should have sunk the way dead bodies do, at least for a while, until they start to decompose and the gases build up and carry them to the surface, but he didn’t. His T-shirt snagged on an old tree root. Bad luck. Ryan wasn’t to know that. And nobody should have been in a position to find Luke because the whole area was quarantined due to foot-and-mouth restrictions. But a man from the Ministry had to take water samples. Bad luck, again. Ryan wasn’t to know that, either.” Templeton smiled, showing his white teeth, and folded his arms. “How am I doing so far, Liz?”

“It’s all lies. Nothing like that happened. You’re just making it up to get us in trouble. I’ve heard about the police doing things like this before.”

“You’re already in trouble,” Annie said. “We’re trying to help you out, find an explanation for what happened. Maybe it did happen the way DC Templeton suggested. Maybe it was an accident? If it was, we can help. But you have to tell us the truth.”

“Look, I don’t know how that bag got there,” Liz said. “We hadn’t seen Luke since the last band practice.”

“You’re not making it easy for us,” Annie said.

“I can’t help it! What do you want me to do? Make something up just to satisfy you?”

“I want the truth.”

“I’ve told you the truth.”

“You’ve told us nothing, Liz.”

“Look,” said Templeton, “we can check, you know. Our forensics people are very good.”