‘I found Ben in the vestry,’ Zack said. ‘He swung the door at me and ran off towards the crypt. I didn’t even know the crypt was there! I tried to catch him, because … because I thought he was up to something. I thought he was trying to get Father Steiner in trouble, when Father Steiner had never been anything but kind to him. To anyone. He was the closest thing to a real father I ever had! But when I chased Ben into the graveyard, I fell. He pulled me, rather. Down into the hole with him. And then he tried to strangle me!’

Once again Fleet looked at Richardson. ‘Because he was scared,’ he said. ‘Because he was already running for his life.’

Richardson’s features were contorted with rage. His gaze flicked between Zack and the people watching down below, before finally settling on Fleet. ‘It’s not true. None of what he’s saying is true! Just look at what he’s doing, for Christ’s sake! He’s a lunatic. A freak show! Just like he was when he was a kid!’

‘That’s why you pointed us to Melissa and Lance,’ Fleet said, ignoring Richardson’s denials. ‘To the scandal involving Richard Hewitt. You knew we’d find out about it eventually, and that we’d begin to suspect Ben’s death was connected to something similar. So you tried to distance yourself from the others. Because you were never implicated in the sexual assault charge, were you? Only Father Steiner suspected you were involved.’

Fleet edged slightly further along the platform.

‘What happened, Richardson? Did the three of you split up in the woods when Ben got away from you? But you had no idea what happened after that, did you? You couldn’t have known, because Ben never turned up. Maybe, at the time, you assumed he must have run away, just like everybody said, because you knew more than anyone that he had reason to. But when his body was discovered twenty-two years later, you decided Melissa and Lance must have killed him after all. There was no other conclusion you could have drawn.’

And it would have been the same for Melissa and Lance, Fleet realised. Richardson had assumed the others had killed Ben; Melissa and Lance would have thought it was Richardson. Maybe, unlike Richardson, they’d feared Ben was dead right from the beginning. That Richardson had gone through with it without telling them, and hadn’t trusted them with the truth. Maybe they’d suspected he’d abandoned the original plan for the same reason – because he didn’t trust them to stick to their story.

Except they had. All three of them. They’d told the police the same lie about playing hide-and-seek they’d agreed on from the beginning. And Melissa and Lance had lived with their guilt – and the uncertainty about what had really happened – ever since.