‘Did he try to fight it?’

‘Fight it how? If he left quietly, the school said, he would at least be able to get a post somewhere else. If he caused a fuss, the details of the accusation would be made public, and then, even if he was cleared, there wouldn’t be a school in the country who would go anywhere near him. And he would have lost his job at Beaconsfield anyway. There’s no way they would have kept him on with a cloud like that hanging over his head. The school had a reputation to protect,’ she added scathingly.

Fleet thought of Adrian Harris, who would have been Beaconsfield’s headmaster at the time. But only just. If he was wary of exposing the school to scandal now, after twenty-four years at his post, what must he have been like then, when he was still trying to prove himself worthy of the role?

‘And Beaconsfield’s a private school, remember,’ Angela said. ‘It wasn’t as though Dad had a union or anything to back him up. So he basically had no choice but to hand in his resignation, and hope he could get a job somewhere else. Except it turned out that no other school would go near him anyway. After what happened at Beaconsfield – after what Melissa Haynes did to him – my father never worked again.’

They’d reached the far end of the garden, and they turned back to face the building. Like Angela, Fleet imagined, he was picturing her father lying bed-bound inside.

‘He should be enjoying his retirement,’ Angela said. ‘Playing with his grandkids. He has six, you know. Three of which are mine.’ She looked skyward for a moment, and raised a finger to one of her eyes. Then she turned to face Fleet with the same steely anger in her expression that she’d displayed when she’d first walked into her father’s room.

‘And that’s everything, Detective Inspector. That’s the entirety of my father’s story. Meaning that, whatever happened to that boy whose body they found, Dad had nothing to do with it. He never even met him.’ She scoffed and shook her head. ‘Not that I’m surprised you’re here. As soon as I saw the headlines, I knew that someone would turn up eventually. Either a journalist or somebody like you, looking to dredge up old lies.’

‘I can assure you, Mrs Leigh, I—’

Fleet’s phone buzzed in his pocket, but before he could check who was calling, Richard Hewitt’s daughter held up a hand. ‘Please, Detective Inspector, do me the courtesy of not patronising me. The police didn’t help us before, and I’m not naive enough to believe that you’re here to help now.’