Fleet wasn’t convinced he could take any credit, but it was indeed a miracle that nobody had been killed in the blaze. By the time the fire was brought under control, however, Beaconsfield had been completely gutted. Fleet had his doubts the school would ever open again, not after everything that had happened: with Ben, with Zack, and after its headmaster had been charged as an accessory to murder. The irony that Richardson and the others had ultimately achieved what they set out to wasn’t lost on Fleet. And there was another irony, too: that Zack, by the end, had wanted the same thing they did. Maybe the fire itself hadn’t been his primary goal, but he wouldn’t have set the blaze in the first place if he hadn’t been happy to see Beaconsfield burn.

Fleet wondered if Father Steiner might be secretly thankful, too. He would never have approved of the means, Fleet knew, but he’d never approved of Beaconsfield either. And now he was free to move on.

‘I’ll be putting DC Bevan forward for a commendation,’ Fleet told Nicky. ‘He saved Richardson’s bodyguard’s life.’

‘You both did,’ Nicky insisted. ‘And don’t forget Ben, boss. This case was about getting justice for him. It may not feel like much of a success at the moment, but I’d say it definitely goes down as a win.’

Fleet smiled wryly. ‘Well, rather than being so hard on yourself, you might want to tell yourself the same thing.’

Nicky looked down. She swirled the ice chips around in her cup.

‘It was like a penance for Zack, wasn’t it?’ she said, after a moment. ‘The shelter. Helping people like Melissa. It was a way for him to try to make up for what he did.’

And that was another irony: the fact that, if Zack hadn’t set up Shining Light, and if Melissa hadn’t gone there for help, he would never have found out what had led him down that path in the first place.

Nicky raised her head. ‘Do we know what happened to him yet?’ she asked Fleet. ‘After Ben, and after Harris helped him cover his tracks …’

‘Harris has been filling in some of the gaps, and Sean’s been keeping me up to date,’ Fleet said. ‘Apparently nobody at Beaconsfield ever saw Isaac again. With the fuss around Ben, and the fact that no one had ever really paid any attention to Isaac anyway, him leaving school went completely unnoticed.’

‘Father Steiner must have noticed, surely?’