‘Running into temptation and two-timing a girl you really like, that’s one thing. Raping her’s another. That video: on there, he looks like . . .’ Conway was withering me. I finished anyway. ‘He looks like he was mad about her.’

‘Course he does. So does any teenage guy who thinks he’s got a shot at a shag. They’ll be whatever they think the girl wants to see. Right up until they realise it’s not getting them into her knickers.’

‘That looked like the real thing to me.’

‘You an expert, yeah?’

‘Are you?’

Conway upped the stare. Couple of hours earlier, I would’ve blinked. I stared right back.

She left it. ‘Even if it was real,’ she said. ‘Even if he was genuinely mad about her. He could’ve raped her anyway. Grown adults don’t do something that’s obviously gonna hurt someone they love, not if they can help it, but that age; remember that age? They’re not the same. They don’t put things together. That’s why half of what they do looks full-on certifiable, to you or me or any sane adult. Things don’t make sense, when you’re that age; you don’t make sense. You stop expecting to.’

A second of silence. Her being right, me wishing she was wrong.

When he wanted something and he couldn’t get it, Holly had said. Not so nice.

‘That night,’ I said. ‘The night Joanne videoed. That was the last time Chris and Selena met up. If he did something to her . . .’

‘Yeah. It was that night.’

Silence, again. Under the body spray, I thought I caught a whiff of hyacinths.

‘What now?’ I asked.

‘Now we wait for Sophie to get us Chris’s phone records. I’m not talking to anyone else till I see what he was at last spring. Meanwhile, we do a proper search in here.’

In the corner of my eye: a flutter of darkness, behind the door-crack.

I had the door flung open before I knew I was moving. Alison squealed and leaped back, hands flapping wildly. In the background, McKenna took a protective pace forward.

‘Can I help you?’ I asked. My heart was going harder than it should have been. Conway eased away from the wall on the other side of the doorway – I hadn’t even seen her go for it. Even with no clue what I was at, she’d been straight in there, ready to back me up.

Alison stared. Said, like someone had taught her the line, ‘I need to get my books to do my homework please.’

‘No problem,’ I said. I felt like an eejit. ‘In you come.’

She sidled in like we might hit her, started pulling stuff out of her bag – her hands looked frail as water spiders, skittering over the books. McKenna stood in the doorway, being massive. Not liking us one little bit.

‘How’s the arm?’ I asked.