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Davey scrambled to his feet, crying now, spluttering and choking as his sobs sucked water close to his lungs. ‘Bastard!’

‘Just get it,’ Steven demanded coldly.

Davey felt about with his hands and feet in the mud. Hitching with sobs and choked by tears, he staggered about and fell over half a dozen times, and finally stood up with the skateboard in his hands. He held it up to Steven like a sacrificial baby. ‘Here!’ he shouted. ‘I hate you!’

‘I hate you too, you spoiled little shit!’

Steven spat at Davey’s upturned face. The gob missed, but even as he did it, Steven felt ashamed. He wiped his mouth and walked away.

Davey hurled the ruined deck at his back. It nearly hit Shane. ‘I wish you were dead! I wish you’d died. I hate you, you big fucking pig!’

Steven said nothing and didn’t look back.

29

I’M JUST PISSING people off, thought Rice. Not just any old people either – she was pissing off the Piper Parents. It was embarrassing.

As agreed with Reynolds, she’d probed John Took and his ex-wife for information about their relationship with their daughter, while she sipped tea on the sofa. Took had suddenly realized what Rice was getting at and blown a fuse.

‘It’s just routine, Mr Took,’ she soothed. ‘We’re asking everybody the same questions.’

‘Why start with me?’

‘I’m going in order,’ she lied swiftly.

‘Fine,’ he said, pulling his phone from his pocket. ‘Let me tell the others they can expect you.’

He dialled a number, while Barbara Took watched them in concern.

‘Look, Mr Took,’ said Rice, trying to sound professional instead of simply annoyed with him, ‘this is an official line of inquiry. I would hope you’d be happy to help if it meant shedding any light on what might have happened to Jess.’

‘No bloody signal,’ muttered Took, and started walking around the room with his phone above his head.

‘Miss Rice,’ said Barbara Took. ‘I absolutely understand why you’re asking these questions, but I can also understand why my h— Why John is so upset by it. Can’t you? I mean, you’re treating us like suspects, when he knows and I know that we both love Jess very much and would never harm her. It’s insulting.’

‘It is,’ shouted Took from the fireplace. ‘Bloody insulting.’

‘I’m not saying either of you harmed her, Mrs Took, I’m just saying that if somebody else thought she was being harmed or neglected, then that might be a motive. And a motive would really help us at this stage.’

‘John, do stop waving that phone around and sit down.’

To Rice’s surprise, John Took did just that. Barbara topped up his tea and offered her a refill too. She’d been trained to accept tea whenever possible in this kind of situation – it established a rapport.

Once they were all sipping from the delicate china, everything seemed better. More civilized. The windows were open, and from somewhere, Rice could hear Rachel say ‘Oh hell!’ and a young man’s voice answer, ‘That’s what happens if you don’t keep your leg on!’

Took made a noise of extreme irritation and muttered, ‘Fucking leg on. I’m paying eighty quid an hour for that pony-club shit.’

Barbara sighed and put down her cup. ‘John, I think we’re agreed that this line of questioning is pointless.’

‘Too bloody right.’

‘But it’s just as clear that Miss Rice needs to ask these questions as part of the investigation.’

Took was grumpily silent.

‘So let her ask them and we’ll answer them, and then Miss Rice can go off and ask them of somebody else. Really, John, as the leader of the FEC, I think it’s up to you to set an example to the other parents. They look to you for things like that.’

Took put his cup down noisily on the coffee table and glared at the carpet. Then finally grunted, ‘Fine.’

‘Good,’ said Barbara. ‘We both know that you and I have never abused or neglected Jess, and I dare say Miss Rice knows that’s true, too?’

Rice nodded eagerly, because it wouldn’t make any difference to the questions she would ask.

‘So let’s not waste her time.’

Barbara patted Took’s knee and, briefly, he put a hand over hers.

Ten minutes later, Rice left with all her questions answered exactly the way she thought they would be, and with the feeling that what had seemed like a good idea at the time was actually going to be a time-consuming, alienating dead end.

30

THE SUZUKI HAD really taken shape.

Now, whenever Steven opened the garage door, he got a little thrill to see his bike upright and with the wheels on. The contents of the boxes had lessened to the point where every time he worked on the bike, there was a tiny feeling that this might be the time he’d finish. But the final bits in the box were like the blue sky on a jigsaw – frustratingly slow, and keeping him from completing the whole.