After

Liz looked down at Steve’s blood staining the snow and took a step back. The penknife he always carried around with him dropped from her gloved hand and landed near his body. She couldn’t get any of the blood on her.

It had been so easy. After he found her messages to Cassie, she knew she had to act straight away. All it had taken was one text, telling him she knew who’d saved those messages, and telling him to meet her on the road. She’d parked there last night, before the snow started, then walked up to meet him in the clearing this morning. She’d brought a weapon with her, but when she saw his penknife sticking out of his pocket it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. Then it had just been a case of slipping up behind him when he wasn’t looking. The knife was sharp enough to do the rest.

She didn’t know how she was going to get her car out, but she’d worry about that later. Her heart racing, she looked up. Light was starting to creep into the sky between the heavy clouds but the snow was still falling. She needed to get out of there as soon as possible. Retracing her own footsteps, she got to the edge of the clearing and paused. Was there someone there? She ducked behind a bush and waited.

Her heart pounding, she realised there was someone approaching: it was Leon. She’d sent him a message as Joe, telling the boy to meet ‘him’ out here. That way, he could be found near Steve’s body and she had the perfect person to blame.

When she had first started this, Liz had assumed that Kian would respond best to Joe’s friendship, and had been surprised when Leon was the one who had opened up to ‘him’, but it had worked out well. With Leon’s history, nobody would believe he wasn’t responsible for Steve’s murder.

As she watched, the boy bent down and picked up the knife, then pulled his hand away sharply. It was going even better than she’d hoped. He would leave his own DNA here, leading the police right to him. Along with the messages from Joe, the evidence was perfect.

But then Leon turned, and suddenly he was looking straight at her. She froze, her mind racing, but she realised she still had all the power. She was in a position of authority, and she knew she could terrify a fifteen-year-old boy into keeping his mouth shut.

What have you done?

The boy turned and ran. It didn’t matter. She’d find him.

Chapter 39

We pulled up outside a large detached house in a smart area to the north of Lincoln.

‘It was Liz?’ I asked.