‘I think I know this one,’ Forest said, addressing her words to Singh. ‘He did it because he wanted us to believe he was an innocent victim. He did it to take attention away from himself as the person who has been manipulating Cassie, killed both Steve Wilkinson and Saul Achembe, and then kidnapped Leon from Samira’s house. Am I getting close, Mike?’

As she said this, Mike raised his head from the table and looked at them both, aghast.

‘No! No, I had nothing to do with any of that!’

‘Why should we believe you? You’ve been lying to us since you stepped into this room. How do we know you’re not lying now? It would be the perfect way to throw suspicion off yourself, if you were also attacked by the killer.’

‘What? Why the hell would I kill Steve and Saul?’

‘That’s what we’d like to know, Mike. Did Steve taunt you because he was seeing Jess after she left you? Did he make you angry? Or was it that he’d found out you were the one stealing from the school? We know you have a gambling problem.’

‘That wasn’t me, any of it! Yeah, I like to gamble, but I’d never steal!’

I snorted at this assertion, but I supposed he’d never thought of it as stealing when we were together. He’d seen everything of mine as being his.

‘Really? What about the items that have gone missing from students in the residence in the last year? Including, most recently, a charm bracelet? It might not have had diamonds on it, but it still could have fetched you a bit of cash at a pawn shop.’

My mouth hung open for a moment after Singh mentioned the bracelet. Had that been Mike, too? From the look on his face, I thought Singh had got it completely right.

‘The bracelet was … a mistake,’ Mike said, his voice so quiet I could barely hear him.

‘A mistake.’ Forest’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. ‘You mean it was a mistake because there were police crawling all over school and you knew you could be risking more than a reprimand from your boss?’

‘No! Anyway, I returned it.’

‘Dumped it in the snow outside Courtney’s window, you mean?’

‘I was going to put it back inside. I went round to see if she was in her room, but then I heard someone coming, so I dropped it and ran.’ He didn’t look up once as he told this story, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

Singh sat forward, and Mike’s gaze flicked upwards. The DS put on his best fake smile. ‘Come on Mike. Tell us the truth. How are you mixed up in all this?’

‘I’m not!’ he yelled, pushing himself backwards so his chair wobbled precariously.