Glancing over to the other side of the room, I saw Cassie, Courtney and Bradley sitting at a table together. Kian joined them a moment later. Another boy tried to follow Kian, but the four residential students stared at him until he backed off and chose a seat elsewhere. A shiver ran down my spine at the way they coordinated their response to a perceived intruder into their little pack.

As I watched, Kian turned to Bradley.

Do you really think he did it?

Bradley shrugged. I don’t know.

Shouldn’t we have told the police?

No. Stop going on about it.

We need to try and get in touch with Joe, ask him what happened, Kian insisted, his eyes wide.

Why? We can’t trust him. We can’t trust anyone.

Courtney looked up and saw me watching, nudged Bradley and nodded in my direction. The four students turned to look at me, and I backed away. What had they been talking about? Who was Joe? And what were the four of them hiding?

Chapter 11

Who had the kids been talking about? Was this Joe involved in Steve’s murder? I’d found myself getting distracted during the two interviews after lunch, wondering what the five of them were hiding. In the end, I didn’t tell Singh about it, because really, what was there to tell? A group of students were talking about someone else. It wasn’t evidence, and that was the only thing DI Forest would be interested in.

Before we left for the day, Singh turned to me and spoke quietly.

‘I’ll drop the DI back at the station, then do you want to meet for a coffee?’

My heart had a little flutter of excitement and I agreed, wondering why he didn’t want Forest to hear his invitation. He named a coffee shop we’d been to before, then got in the car and left.

Approaching my car, I paused. The snow had stopped, leaving a smooth blanket around the other vehicles in the car park. Next to my car, however, there was a trail of footprints, leading from the path to the driver’s door, then around to the passenger side. A shiver ran down my spine and I looked around me, suddenly feeling as if I were being watched. Was it the same person who’d been peering in my car earlier? All the windows that overlooked the car park were empty, however.

Before I got in, I checked the back seat and the boot, as well as my tyres, but there was nothing to indicate why someone had been looking at my car. I hadn’t imagined it yesterday, and today it was even clearer. As I pulled out of the gates I checked around me again, just in case someone was watching me leave, but there was no one.