Now Harris’s eyes widened. ‘What? No! That’s … that’s not true!’ But behind the outrage in his expression, there was an unmistakable flicker of fear.

‘I know who killed Ben, Mr Harris. I know who killed Melissa Haynes, and Lance Wheeler, and I know who set fire to the school. And I think you do, too.’

Now the headmaster was shaking his head. He’d started backing away, but Bevan had moved behind him, and Harris had nowhere to go.

Fleet closed the gap between them. ‘So I’m going to ask you one more time, Mr Harris. Where is he? Where’s your son?’

Isaac – May 1997

(The day of Ben’s death)

When the door slammed into him, Isaac was knocked from his feet. He hit his head on the wall behind him, and landed heavily on the hard stone floor. And then someone was vaulting over him, hurdling his legs and sprinting for the exit.

It was the shock as much as the bump to the head that left Isaac stunned. The chapel was supposed to have been empty. Father Steiner was sick in his room – Isaac had seen him there himself. That was why he was here in the first place, to collect the notes the chaplain had prepared for his morning sermon, and had left in the chapel when he’d started feeling ill.

Groggily, Isaac raised his head, and caught sight of the figure running for the door. A boy. A pupil. And if Isaac wasn’t mistaken …

He forced himself to get up, ignoring the throbbing in his skull. The door into the vestry had swung almost closed, and he pulled it wide – and when he saw what lay before him, it was like being knocked off his feet all over again.

The vestry had been ransacked. The chaplain’s papers were all over the floor, as well as the candles, and the linen, and everything else the sideboard had contained. The cupboard doors hung open, and the drawers had been wrenched from their runners.

And that wasn’t all. At Isaac’s feet there was a face gazing up at him. Smiling, leering.

Isaac bent and picked up the photograph. Was he … he was. He was naked.

Isaac’s confusion soured instantly into disgust. He let go of the photograph as though it had burned him, but as it fell he realised there was another one lying on the floor. And another, and another – a whole load of them scattered about like a spilled deck of cards. A disgusting, depraved deck of cards, like the novelty pack Isaac had seen other boys playing with after lights out in his dorm.

What were the photographs doing here? Who had taken them? Why?

Isaac was only sure of one thing.

Ben.

Ben had done this.

Isaac had seen him running. And though at first he’d struggled to understand, all of a sudden it made perfect sense.