Sasha changed the subject. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘First Simon is almost killed, and now Lydia has been… I don’t know what to think.’

Sasha had asked how Karin felt, not what she thought. Her face was a blank, frozen in pain, much like it had been when they had sat together late at night in the station corridor all those years ago.

‘It’s hot enough without having to wear this bloody thing.’ Standing beneath the pounding sun, Sasha pulled the bunching hood of the suit away from her collar. ‘I saw you both arguing in the car at Marine Parade yesterday.’

‘Lydia was very upset. I did my best to comfort her, but she was terrified that her boyfriend wouldn’t want to see her again. And she blamed me for telling you about him.’

‘Karin.’ Sasha looked at her carefully. ‘When did you last see Lydia?’

‘I came back here with her at eight last night, something like that, and offered to stay. But she wouldn’t let me, she was still angry about what happened. She said she wanted to be alone in case he called.’

‘And you went home,’ said Sasha.

‘No, actually.’ Karin swallowed. ‘I met somebody.’

‘Who was it?’

‘That’s personal.’

‘Two kids are missing, Karin, and Lydia is dead.’ Sasha was running out of patience with Karin’s evasiveness. ‘Who did you meet last night?’

‘Why, do I need an alibi?’ she snapped. ‘It was a man… an acquaintance. I went home to change and met him at about half eight, quarter to nine, in a hotel bar on the seafront. We were together until about half ten. Plenty of people would have seen us there.’

‘And you didn’t see her after that?’ Sasha asked. Karin shook her head, looked away. ‘Where would she have got the drugs from?’

‘There are people around here, dealers she knew.’ Karin glanced nervously around the estate. ‘I thought she’d left them all behind, I honestly believed she was starting to move on with her life, but obviously not.’

‘I’m sorry, I know you and she were close.’

‘She was my best friend, I guess.’ Karin glanced down at her phone. ‘After Becky.’

Lydia had just died and even all these years later Karin still spoke about Becky as if she was still alive.

Karin nodded at Sasha’s forehead. ‘I hope you weren’t hurt too much.’

‘This?’ Sasha lifted her fingers to the bruise. ‘Comes with the territory. But the man who did it, this Matt Foster or whoever he is, said something to me just before he tried to stuff my head into the slot of a fruit machine, he said, you’ll know the truth about her. He could have been talking about Lydia, he may even have meant Michelle, but I don’t think he was, I think he was talking about you.’

Karin glanced sharply at Sasha. ‘Why would you think that?’