‘Where did you take the boat, Paul? Was it to the Laurie Fell estate across Ullswater?’

Silence.

‘Is it possible that when the shoe prints taken from around one of the sheds there are compared to yours, they’ll match?’

Silence.

‘Did you visit Green Lead Slate Camp on Sunday night?’

‘Nah.’

‘Did you try to force your way into the White Lion pub in Patterdale on the same evening?’

Paul sat up and looked slightly uncomfortable for the first time.

‘Nah.’

‘Did you brag about earning money for taking out rich people?’

Silence.

‘Why did you beat up your girlfriend? Did she ask you where you’d been?’

‘Fuck off! I didn’t do anything!’

One of the male officers stepped forward.

‘Mind your language, Paul,’ Kelly said. Her constant reference to his girlfriend was having the desired effect. He sat up and straightened his legs, closing them, to Kelly’s relief. He folded his arms across his chest and the smile disappeared from his face.

‘Who were you talking to? This man?’ She slid a photograph of Neil Hardy across to him.

Silence.

‘Why were you bragging about bringing down rich people, Paul?’

‘I think I’ll have a lawyer now,’ he said, going quite pale.

Chapter 50

George sat gloomily staring at his phone. Every time Vivienne called him it was more pressure, more craziness, and the stakes got that bit higher. He’d begun to question just how far he would go to get his daughter back. But he’d gone too far already, and Vivienne knew it.

As an ex-copper, he had a moral code which, over the years, had gone from legitimately pristine like his badge, to distinctly subjective. He’d been kicked off the force for being too heavy-handed with a wife-beater. He’d deserved it. But he’d lost his daughter as a result of his fists. Everything he did was to get her back. Vivienne was equally his saviour and his master.

Paul Edderbridge had been a perfect choice. He was a wife-beater, and a lowlife, so George had no problem suggesting his hands got dirty, rather than his own. Edderbridge had trespassed on the estate before, he was a dropout without a job, he had previous convictions, and he was easily bought. The problem was that it had come to George’s attention that Paul Edderbridge was, at the very moment Vivienne called, being hosted downtown in Penrith by Cumbria Constabulary, no doubt over a cup of weak coffee. Paul had called him only an hour before, cocky as anything, and told him casually about it, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. George knew, from his experience, that this wasn’t the case at all.