‘Yes, but … that doesn’t mean anything! Adrian’s always been oversensitive when it comes to my relationships with certain pupils. And Ben liked to draw! He came to the chapel because of the architecture! To talk as well, yes, but he and I … we were …’

‘Were what? Friends? You thought he trusted you. And who knows, maybe in the end he did. But that’s not why Ben first came to you. He came to you because Richardson and the others put him up to it. Didn’t it strike you as strange that Ben hung out with them in the first place? That they’d allowed him into their little clique?’

‘But that’s … that’s what I said to him. I told him. I tried to warn him …’

‘They promised Ben friendship, and in return convinced him to play a part. To get close to you, or at least to make it look as though you and he were close, so that others, when the time came, would believe whatever story they chose to tell.’ Fleet paused for a moment to let what he was saying sink in. ‘So what happened next? Did you discover what they were trying to do? Did Ben accidentally let something slip?’

Father Steiner was staring at Fleet, but his gaze seemed to have turned inward. ‘The book …’ he muttered.

Fleet frowned. ‘What book?’

‘Nothing, I …’ The chaplain shook his head. ‘I gave Ben a book. To copy from. And he … he asked me to write a dedication. I thought …’

Fleet was watching the chaplain intently. He was acting, Fleet told himself. The shock he was showing wasn’t real. And yet it looked real. If Fleet didn’t know better, he would have said Father Steiner was only belatedly grasping the truth himself, piecing it together the same way Fleet was.

‘Did Ben proposition you the way Melissa propositioned Richard Hewitt?’ Fleet asked, pressing on. ‘Is that when you realised that you’d been played?’

The chaplain’s gaze snapped to meet Fleet’s.

‘I would imagine that men in your position have to contend with allegations of the sort Richard Hewitt faced all the time,’ Fleet said. ‘Did the idea disgust you? Did you lose your temper? Lash out, maybe, when you and Ben were alone?’

‘No,’ Father Steiner insisted. He was shaking his head emphatically. ‘No, that’s not—’

‘Where were you the day Ben was killed?’

‘I told you! I was ill! I was in the chapel in the morning, but then, in the afternoon—’

‘What about yesterday? Last night? Where were you then?’

‘Just … at the school! I don’t know exactly, just … just in my room, probably. Or the vestry. I don’t remember!’