A smiled twitched at the corners of Carmella’s lips. She must be thinking the same as me, thought Patrick. This is Larry being chivalrous.

‘And?’ Patrick said.

‘There isn’t much to tell. I went round about eight, saw Alice, then went home at about eleven before her dad and stepmum got home.’

‘What were you and Alice doing?’

Larry squirmed. Patrick thought he was probably torn between wanting to tell him to mind his own and the desire to show off.

‘We went to her room,’ he said. ‘To . . . you know.’

Carmella asked, ‘Were you in her room the whole time you were there?’

He shrugged. ‘Pretty much.’

‘What did you do in her room?’ Patrick asked.

Larry avoided his eye. ‘I already told you.’

‘No you didn’t. You said “you know”. You need to elaborate.’

Now Larry looked straight at him. ‘We had sex, alright? Do you want to know what positions we did it in?’

‘And that’s the only reason you and Alice didn’t want us to know you were there that night?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you really think that Alice’s parents would be so freaked out by the thought of you and their daughter having sex that you had to lie about it, when you knew how important it is for us to know exactly what happened in their house that night?’

Larry gnawed on his thumb before replying. ‘I knew we should tell you I was there. But I didn’t see anything. I don’t know anything. So I didn’t think it would make a difference.’

‘Did you see Frankie that night?’

‘No. She was in bed when I got there.’

‘You didn’t hear her?’ Carmella asked.

‘No. I didn’t hear or see nothing. As far as I could tell, she wasn’t even there.’

Patrick barely gave him a chance to finish before asking, ‘Were you and Alice drinking that night? And I don’t care about you being seventeen, by the way.’

‘No. Well, maybe a can of beer each. But that’s it.’

‘What about drugs?’

Larry’s answer was a rather unconvincing, ‘No.’

‘You sure about that? You don’t sound very sure. Not even a bit of weed?’

‘Nothing. I swear.’

‘What about Alice?’

Larry shifted in his seat. ‘Alright. We ate some brownies. Hash brownies. But just, like, one each.’

Patrick was tempted to laugh. He remembered eating hash cakes when he was in his teens. It was the closest he’d ever come to having a psychotic episode. No wonder Alice had been passed out on the sofa when Helen and Sean got home.

‘Who baked them?’ Patrick asked.

‘I did. Alice is crap at that kind of thing.’

‘Alright, Larry, thanks for finally being honest,’ he said, and suspended the interview. It was time to go and talk to Alice again, let her know what her boyfriend had admitted.