But someone else could have electronically eavesdropped the arrangements. There could have been a fifth pair of eyes taking in everything they did. It would have taken a crueller man than Tony to voice those thoughts. ‘Jennifer sounds like a very sensible girl.’
‘She was,’ Tania said softly, her fingers stroking the arm of her chair as if it were her daughter’s hair. ‘Not in a boring, goody-two-shoes way. She had too much spirit for that. But she knew the world could be a dangerous place.’ Her face crumpled. ‘She was so precious to us. Our only child. I made sure she understood that there were times when it made sense to be cautious.’
‘I understand that,’ Tony said. ‘So what would entice her to meet someone in secret? What would make her ignore her good sense and meet a stranger? What would tempt her so much she had to lie to her best friend? I mean, we all lie to our parents from time to time, that’s the way the world works. But teenage girls don’t lie to their best mates without a very pressing reason. And I’m struggling to think what that might be. Was there anything - anything at all - that Jennifer wanted so badly she’d throw caution and good sense out of the window?’
The Maidments looked at each other, nonplussed. ‘I can’t think of anything,’ Tania said.
‘What about boys? Could there have been somebody she was infatuated with? Somebody who could have persuaded her to keep him secret?’
‘She’d have told Claire,’ Tania said. ‘I know they talked about the boys they fancied. Telling Claire wouldn’t have counted as breaking a promise.’
She was probably right, he thought. What she was describing was standard operating procedure for females, particularly teenagers. Tony got to his feet. There was nothing more for him there. The police had already searched Jennifer’s room. It would be too disturbed now to tell him anything useful. ‘If you think of anything, call me,’ he said, handing Paul Maidment a card with his mobile number. ‘Or if you just want to talk about Jennifer. I’m happy to listen.’ The Maidments both looked nonplussed at the abrupt ending to the conversation. Tony thought they probably expected an extended outpouring of compassion. But what would be the point of that? He couldn’t make them feel better, even if they wanted to. Still, Tania Maidment wasn’t taking anything lying down right now.
‘That’s it?’ she said. ‘Five minutes of your precious time and you’re out of here? How the hell can you have learned anything about my daughter in five minutes?’
Tony was startled. The recently bereaved who wanted to lash out generally picked on the police, not him. He was accustomed to sympathising with Carol, not taking it on the chin himself. ‘I’ve been doing this a long time,’ he said, trying not to sound defensive. ‘I’ll be talking to her friend Claire, I’ll be reading her emails. You’re just one of the sources for my picture of Jennifer.’
Tania looked as if he’d knocked the wind out of her. She made a noise that on another day might have been a contemptuous snort. ‘That’s what it’s come to, is it? I’m just one of the sources for my daughter’s life.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Tony said abruptly. Staying would merely prolong the immediate pain for the Maidments. His only value to them lay elsewhere. So he simply nodded to them both and walked from the room leaving Ambrose to scramble after him.
The detective caught him up halfway to the car. ‘That was a bit hairy,’ he said. ‘I think they thought you were a bit curt.’
‘I’m not good at small talk. I said what I needed to. They’ve got something to think about now. That might shake something loose in their memories. Sometimes what I do, it looks brutal. But it works. Tomorrow, I want to talk to Claire. Jennifer might have spoken to her.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘I promise to play nice.’
‘What do you want to do now?’ Ambrose asked.
‘I want to read the messages you got from her computer. Why don’t you drop me at my hotel and bring me the paperwork as soon as you can persuade your boss that if he wants to get what his budget is paying for he should let me do things the way that works for me.’ He put a hand on Ambrose’s arm, realising how brusque he had sounded. He still got it wrong more often than he liked when it came to responding like normal people. ‘I really appreciate your help with this. It’s not easy to explain how the profiling works. But it does involve thinking myself inside someone else’s skin. I don’t like being around other people when I’m going there.’
Ambrose ran a hand over his smooth skull, his eyes troubled. ‘I don’t imagine you do. Tell you the truth, it’s all a bit spooky to me. But you’re the expert.’
He spoke as if that were something to be pleased about. Tony stared up at the Maidments’ house, wondering what sort of messy head had wrecked their lives. Soon he’d have to pry his way in there and find out. It wasn’t an enticing prospect. For a brief moment, he missed Carol Jordan so much it made him feel nauseous. He turned back to Ambrose. ‘Somebody has to be.’
CHAPTER 14
Paula watched another adolescent boy slouch out of the small room they’d been allocated to conduct interviews in. ‘Were you like that when you were fourteen?’ she asked Kevin.
‘Are you kidding? My mother would have slapped me if I’d spoken to an adult like that. What I can’t decide is whether it’s a generation thing or a class thing. Seems to me that working-class lads have got an attitude too, but there’s something different about these pillocks. I don’t know if it’s a sense of entitlement or what, but they’re really pissing me off.’
Paula knew exactly what he meant. She’d been in schools after kids had died in knife attacks, the sudden nightmare that seemed to happen out of nowhere, almost at random. She’d felt that sense of shock that permeated the corridors, seen the anxiety on teenage faces as they wondered whether death was going to touch them next, heard the fear under the defiance in pupils’ voices. There was none of that here. It was as if Daniel’s death was something that had happened far from them - an item on the news, something parents talked about as a remote threat. The only person who’d seemed at all upset was Daniel’s form teacher. Even the headmaster of William Makepeace had behaved as if this were a minor inconvenience rather than a tragedy. ‘If I had kids, this is the last place I’d be sending them,’ she said.
‘You ever think about it? Having children, I mean.’ Kevin cocked his head to one side, considering her.
Paula puffed her cheeks and blew her breath out. ‘Nothing like the big questions, eh, Sarge? To be honest, I’ve never felt the ticking of the biological clock. What about you? You like being a dad?’
He looked surprised at having his question turned back on him. ‘It’s the best thing and it’s the worst thing,’ he said slowly. ‘The way I love my kids, Ruby especially - it’s total, unconditional, forever. But the downside is the fear of loss. Cases like this, where parents end up burying their kids? It’s like a nail in your heart.’
A knock at the door interrupted their exchange and another teenage boy walked in without waiting to be invited. Slim and dark, he was the shortest lad they’d seen all morning by several inches. Perfect skin the colour of roasted almonds, a thick mop of glossy dark hair, a Viking longship prow of a nose and a rosebud mouth - an off-kilter arrangement of features that demanded a second look. ‘I’m Asif Khan,’ he said, dropping into a chair. Hands in pockets, legs thrust straight out and crossed at the ankles. ‘And you’re the cops.’
Here we go again. Kevin introduced them both and got straight down to business. ‘You know why we’re here. Was Daniel a friend of yours?’ He wasn’t expecting much; the boys identified as having been close to Daniel had been the first half-dozen sent in to talk to them. There had been another eight or nine since, none admitting to more than acquaintance.