‘Judge me if you want to,’ said Ms Johnson. ‘But it was twenty-two years ago. And that little bugger always hated me. Why should I pretend I ever cared about him?’

‘You and Ben weren’t close,’ Fleet responded. ‘Is that what you’re saying, Ms Johnson?’

She gave a sniff. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’ She lit another cigarette, and Fleet stole a glance at the photographs that were on the mantelpiece. They were all of her: of Ben’s stepmother when she was younger. Posing on the beach in a bikini; pouting in a black-and-white close-up. She’d been a very attractive young woman. She remained attractive, in fact, in spite of the smoker’s wrinkles and heavy make-up – though from the narrow range of pictures she’d selected to display, it was obvious she felt her best days were behind her. And in none of the pictures was there anyone else in shot. Fleet felt a pang of sympathy for the woman, all alone in her pokey little flat, before it struck him that his own situation was essentially the same.

‘You said Ben hated you, Ms Johnson,’ said Nicky. ‘Why was that, do you think?’

‘I was his stepmother, wasn’t I? He was supposed to hate me. But he hated his father, too, if that makes any difference. He hated everyone. Pushed people away. I tried to be nice to him, but every time I made an effort, he’d end up screaming, yelling at me to leave him alone. I said to Tony at the time, what that kid needs is some proper discipline. But Tony wasn’t man enough to administer it, so he ended up making it somebody else’s problem.’

‘The school’s, you mean?’ said Nicky.

‘Schools, plural,’ replied Ben’s stepmother. ‘Ben got kicked out of three of them in just three years. Talk about a waste of money. Money that Tony didn’t even have, as it turned out.’

‘Ben’s father had money troubles?’ prompted Fleet.

Ms Johnson narrowed her eyes, and for a moment Fleet felt certain she would tell him to sod off and mind his own business. But after exhaling another lungful of smoke, she smiled bitterly. ‘Money troubles,’ she said derisively. ‘What that man had went way beyond troubles. He wasn’t just broke. He was ruined. He owed so much to so many people, there was no point trying to pay any of it off – so he kept on borrowing more. It all came to a head about a year after Ben went missing.’

‘Came to a head?’