‘There’s another possibility, of course,’ said Nicky. ‘Ben’s friends have always presented themselves as a group. They stuck to the same story, claimed the same alibi. So maybe Melissa and Lance killed Ben together. When Melissa heard Ben’s body had been discovered and realised the truth would come out, she went looking for Lance because she was worried he would talk.’

‘Or the other way round. She wanted to confess, and Lance didn’t.’

‘Either way, they end up arguing. It gets heated, one of them threatens to tell all, the other is determined to stop them …’

‘And Callum Richardson?’ said Fleet. ‘He’s got an alibi for the entire timeframe surrounding Lance’s death. I checked, and two hundred people saw him walk on stage in a London hotel and pick up an award. But if Melissa and Lance were involved in what happened to Ben, there’s every chance all three of them were. If we’re to believe Father Steiner, Richardson was always the ring leader.’

He looked across the room towards the computer screen, then at the wall behind his desk. On a noticeboard almost the size of the wall itself, Fleet had pinned pictures of every one of the missing souls in the files Superintendent Burton had personally delivered to Fleet’s desk the morning he’d moved into his new office. There were husbands, wives; mothers, fathers; sons, daughters. All had been missing for years. Some, decades. Fleet had spent hours staring at them. He’d found that if he focused on the same picture long enough, he would start to imagine the pain behind their eyes. The fear that they would remain lost forever. And the chances were, Fleet knew, that was the way it would be.

In the centre of the display was a photograph of Ben, where Fleet had moved it at the start of the investigation. At first the boy’s expression had struck Fleet as disdainful, he recalled. But now more than anything Ben seemed afraid. His lips were drawn tight; his eyes, if anything, were slightly wide. In the image he was posing for a school photographer, but even then, it seemed, he’d been reluctant to drop his guard.

‘I believed him, you know,’ Fleet said. ‘Callum Richardson, I mean.’

‘About what in particular?’

‘I don’t think he knew that Lance Wheeler was dead, for one thing. Least of all that he was murdered. And I think Richardson genuinely feels he’s the victim of some conspiracy. That Manish Apte and all the rest are out to get him. To discredit him before he has a chance to damage them in the polls.’