‘John Lennon,’ Rickard said gently. ‘From The Beatles.’
‘Oh yeah! Love them.’ He squinted at Patrick. ‘Are you related?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Oh.’ Barrett turned his attention to his manager. ‘Did my deliveries come?’
‘Yeah, Shawn. Hang on a tick.’ Rickard left the room and returned with the pile of boxes, which he set down on the floor in front of the sofa. Barrett began immediately tearing them open like a five-year-old on Christmas morning, scrutinising each video game, DVD or gadget before tossing it aside. Only once did he pause, exclaim ‘Awesome!’ over some PS4 game, before moving on to the next parcel. Soon, the floor was covered with brown cardboard.
‘Do a lot of online shopping?’ Patrick asked, halfway through this display.
Rickard answered. ‘These are from Shawn’s Amazon wish list. He lists whatever he wants and his fans compete to buy the stuff first.’ He laughed. ‘I’ve had to ask Shawn to restrict the amount of stuff he adds to the list. The delivery company can’t cope.’
Patrick noticed that the pop star didn’t bother to read the notes that came with each gift.
After Shawn had tossed aside the last item, he returned to staring at his phone. ‘Tweeting,’ he said. He thumbed the screen, concentrating hard. ‘There you go.’
‘What did it say?’ Rickard said, checking his own phone. Patrick realised the manager was worried Barrett might have tweeted something about his own presence. A look of relief crossed the manager’s face. ‘“Just chillin.” Nice one.’ He winked at Patrick. ‘Bet that gets ten thousand retweets.’
Patrick tried hard not to roll his eyes. He scrutinised the young man before him. Could he really be a savage murderer? It seemed difficult imagining this spaced-out kid gathering the energy to make a sandwich, and it was equally hard to picture him persuading a girl to join him in a sadomasochistic sex session – let alone be powerful and cunning enough to do what the killer of Jess and Rose had done. But he knew for a fact that Barrett engaged in S&M. And Barrett had enough drive to achieve what millions of teenage boys only dreamt of. It couldn’t purely be luck; surely Barrett wasn’t a mere puppet? This slacker puppy act had to be just that: an act.
Patrick sat down in a leather armchair opposite Barrett, with Rickard hovering close by. ‘Shawn, thank you for agreeing to talk to me. I need to—’
Barrett interrupted. ‘What kind of music are you into?’
Patrick decided it wouldn’t do any harm to act friendly. ‘My favourite band are The Cure. Have you heard of them?’
To Patrick’s surprise, Barrett’s eyes lit up. ‘The Cure? Oh yeah, my granddad likes them.’
‘Your granddad?’
Rickard interjected. ‘His grandfather’s about your age. Shawn’s mum had him when she was seventeen. And her parents were teenagers when they had her.’
‘Yeah,’ Shawn drawled. ‘He’s into all that eighties stuff. Depeche Mode, The Human League. That miserable bloke – what’s his name? Morrissey, that’s it.’ To Patrick’s even greater surprise, Barrett started singing one of The Smiths’ songs, ‘Panic’. So he really could sing: his voice was bland but tuneful, and Patrick could imagine how horrified Morrissey would be if he heard this rendition of his song.
‘I met the guy from The Cure. He gave me a signed disc . . . Hang on.’
Barrett got up and crossed the room to a shelving unit, fishing out what Patrick knew to be one of the rarest Cure picture discs, an item Patrick had coveted for over twenty years. And it was signed! Barrett looked at it and then shoved it back between the other records on the shelf. ‘I need to get a turntable so I can listen to it.’
It was only when Patrick saw how Rickard was grinning at him that he was able to gather himself and remember what he was there for. He cleared his throat.
‘Shawn, do you know why I’m here?’
Barrett plonked himself down on the sofa again. He seemed more alert now, though he wouldn’t meet Patrick’s eye.
‘Yeah, Mervyn told us. But that girl . . . I thought she was over sixteen. Actually, I thought she was nineteen. That’s what she told me. And she was well up for everything we did.’
‘And what exactly did you do?’ Patrick wanted to see Shawn’s face as he said it, to see if there was anything vicious or gleeful in his expression.
Shawn opened his mouth to speak, but his manager spoke up first. ‘Shawn hasn’t actually admitted to doing anything at all with this girl you’re referring to.’
‘It sounded to me like he just did.’
Rickard shook his head. ‘It doesn’t even come under your jurisdiction. And we know why you really want to talk to Shawn. We know about this nutty idea you have.’
Patrick looked over to the young boy-band singer. He was staring at his phone again, probably flicking through his Twitter messages. As cool as any suspect Patrick had ever seen. He was either completely innocent, a brilliant actor . . . or a bona fide psychopath. Patrick certainly didn’t trust Mervyn Hammond and his psychometric testing. Patrick’s heartbeat increased. If Shawn was a psychopath, if he was a killer, this was going to be the news story of the year. It would overshadow every other story about celebrity crime. Bigger than Jimmy Savile or even Oscar Pistorius. If Shawn Barrett did it, a million teenage hearts would be broken.
‘Shawn, I need to ask you about your whereabouts on a couple of dates. First, the evening of Wednesday, fourth of February, and, second, Saturday, seventh of February, all day and evening.’
Shawn looked blank. He turned his head towards his manager, who produced a sheet of paper.
‘We knew you would ask that. On the fourth, which was two nights before OnT played Twickenham, Shawn was here, at home.’
‘On your own?’ Patrick asked, addressing the singer.
‘Yeah.’
‘Just chilling, I assume?’
Shawn cocked his head. ‘I guess. I was probably playing Minecraft. That’s how I relax when I’m not working.’
He really was only a kid, Patrick thought. ‘What about Saturday the seventh?’
Again, Rickard flapped his piece of paper. ‘Shawn was in the studio all afternoon until eight.’
‘Yeah, we were recording a track for a charity album, that’s right. For this place called St Mary’s Children’s Home.’
‘Lots of witnesses to that,’ Rickard said. ‘Then the band went for dinner, until about ten. Even more witnesses.’
‘And then I came home on my own.’
Patrick thought about it. Daniel Hamlet had been unable to give an exact time of death for Jess, but he had estimated it had been sometime during Saturday night. Which meant Shawn didn’t have an alibi for either murder.
‘Did anyone see you come home that night?’
‘Our driver dropped me off. And . . .’
‘What is it?’
Shawn flicked an anxious look towards his manager. ‘I’m not supposed . . . If this gets out . . .’
Rickard walked over to the couch and leant so Shawn could whisper in his ear. Patrick clenched his fists.
‘We can trust you to be discreet, can’t we?’ Rickard said.
‘This is a murder investigation. I agreed to come here, but if you want to head to the station now . . .’
‘All right, keep your hair on. Tell him, Shawn.’
The pop star looked both sheepish and proud. ‘Well, when I got home I sent a few messages to this girl I’ve been sort of seeing on Snapchat.’
‘Messages?’
He smiled wickedly, the first sign of being a red-blooded male Patrick had witnessed in the flesh. ‘Yeah. You know what Snapchat is?’
‘Of course.’ Wendy had explained it to him the day before. ‘The photos vanish almost immediately, don’t they?’
‘That’s right. Anyway, we exchanged a few pics and then . . . she came over.’
‘You mean it was like a booty call?’
Shawn looked at him blankly.
‘She came over for sex?’