‘Okay, then. You’ve threatened Andrew Dean, Abs, Jeremy Weston and Tony Gardner on more than one occasion. You were quoted in the press soon after they were interviewed about the disappearance of your niece and released without charge, as saying that they would…’ She took from the folder a photocopy of a newspaper article and read from it. ‘Face retribution.’

‘In the anger of the moment, my phrasing was… unfortunate. I was grieving.’

‘But what did you mean?’ said Sasha.

‘I meant justice in a court of law.’ Jenkins swallowed. ‘I was angry, I felt powerless, but it doesn’t mean I’d kill four people.’ He looked her in the eye. ‘Even if they’re as guilty as hell.’

‘You think she’s dead?’

‘After all this time?’ Jenkins snorted in contempt. ‘What do you think happened to her?’

‘But that wasn’t the only time you made threats about those men, Davey. You’ve made other veiled remarks in the press about how they’ll get what’s coming to them.’

‘That’s Mr Jenkins to you,’ he told her, and she nodded in apology. ‘Journalists love a juicy quote and they know how to manipulate you into giving them one.’

‘Tell me about the night Rhiannon disappeared,’ said Sasha.

‘What’s the point?’ he snapped. ‘I told you cops at the time and nothing was done.’

‘It’ll help me understand a little bit better what’s going on here.’

Davey Jenkins wearily pulled his hands down his face.

‘What you have to know about Rhiannon is that she had a difficult upbringing. Her mother died when she was a little ’un, and she was brought up by her dad. I love him, of course I do, but if there was ever a man ill-equipped to be a parent, it’s my brother Owen. He’s spent his life down the bookies, or pissing away his earnings, and was never home. And so Rhiannon went a bit wild, she could be a bit of a handful. Me and the wife tried to help out as much as we could, and took her on holiday with us every year. We didn’t have kids, it just never happened for us, and we treated Rhiannon as if she was our own. We’d go somewhere sunny, a resort in Greece or Spain, and she loved that. But that last year we decided to have one of those staycations.’ His voice cracked with emotion. ‘Worst decision I ever made.’

‘My client is upset,’ interrupted the lawyer. ‘Maybe we should break.’