Shelton rose to the challenge. ‘Let’s start with the most recent thing I can find and work backwards from there.’ Jumping onto YouTube and rattling keys, he quickly found a day-old BBC TV interview with the grief-stricken father, filmed at home in a nice room with a grand fireplace covered in family photographs artfully positioned in the shot. It was one of those maudlin, hushed moments of journalistic insincerity where all concerned had to pretend they weren’t in it strictly for the ratings. Close to tears but manfully sucking it up, Tristan Dudley described how he’d spoken to his dear departed daughter just hours before she died, and seen her just the previous day. With a tremor in his voice he told the interviewer that Annie had been a wonderful, bright girl with her whole life ahead of her. The light of their lives, the best daughter anyone could wish for. Everyone loved her so much. They couldn’t believe she was gone. He and his wife were suffering from terrible shock but he intended to go on serving his constituency and his country as best he could, yadda yadda.

‘He’s lying,’ Ben said.

Chapter 49

Shelton paused the YouTube playback, freezing Tristan Dudley’s highly scripted monologue in mid-sentence. ‘I agree. Unless he’s in contact with the spirit world, no way can he be telling the truth.’

‘Someone got to him, you reckon?’ Wolf asked.

‘Maybe,’ Ben said. ‘Still doesn’t answer the question: why Annie?’

Wolf raised his arms. ‘Well then, what then?’

Ben turned to Shelton. ‘What kind of scandals did Dudley dodge, to get him the nickname “Teflon Tris”?’

‘Like I said, all I know is rumours. From what I heard, I got the impression that little Annie might not have been quite the model student and perfect daughter that her daddy’s cracking her up to be.’ Shelton shrugged. ‘Then again, he would say that, wouldn’t he? People don’t usually say negative things about their kid who just died. Especially not politicians, who lie their arses off even at the best of times.’

Ben said nothing for a long minute as thoughts churned through his mind. They needed to know more. The information to hand was just too flimsy. There had to be a better source than rumours, hearsay and speculation.

Then an idea suddenly came to him.

‘When did Georgie send you Abbott’s book manuscript?’ he asked Shelton.

Shelton looked taken aback by the unexpected question. ‘Just a few days ago. But the agency had already had it for three weeks. She said the ass was holding back from telling her about it, worried she’d get upset.’

‘So the hundred-page sample you’ve seen is at least three weeks old.’

‘I suppose so, yes. Why are you asking?’