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end. “Can you tell me the names of anyone else she was friends with?”
    Outside the house a few minutes later DS Woods waited until they’d walked a few steps along the street before he said anything. In the meantime he blew his nose morosely.
    Holly looked across the road towards the blocks of flats that rose in the darkness from the Cadogan Estate. Many of their windows were lit, but where the surrounding, lower buildings crowded in there were patches of darkness – areas that couldn’t be made out – and a sense that if you went in there you’d better know where you were going and not linger on the way.
    â€œSo did you find out what was going on?” Woods asked when he’d finished wiping his nose.
    â€œNot really, sir,” Holly said. “She wasn’t telling the truth though – I mean, she wasn’t telling everything she knows.”
    Woods sniffed hard. “It’s ‘Sarge’, not ‘sir’,” he said, but it was a throwaway comment, as if it wasn’t important. “So
what
do you think she wasn’t telling?”
    Holly had been trying to work out the same thing.
    â€œShe told me she wanted her dad to give Ashleigh a lift home.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œIt was the way she said it – like there was a reason – but I couldn’t get her to tell me what it was.”
    Holly was disappointed with her lack of success but Woods didn’t appear too worried. “That’s teenage girls for you,” he said without any trace of irony. “What about Ashleigh’s other friends?”
    â€œI got four names – all girls from school – but it didn’t seem like they were close friends.”
    â€œWhat about boys then – boyfriends?”
    â€œNo. I asked, but Lauren said Ashleigh didn’t have one.”
    â€œ
Ever
had one?”
    â€œNo, it didn’t sound like it.”
    â€œOkay,” Woods said, keying the central locking on the car. “Well, at least we know what time she left here.”
    â€œIt’s too early though, isn’t it?” Holly said. “When Ashleigh texted her mum at twenty to seven, she made it look like she was only just leaving.”
    Woods paused with his car door half open and gave her a look.
    â€œYou think Lauren and her mother got the time wrong?”
    Holly shook her head. “No,” she said. “I think Ashleigh didn’t want her mum to know where she was.”
    â€œAny idea why? – Why do
you
lie to your mum?”
    â€œI don’t,” Holly said, feeling slightly embarrassed. Then she added: “Not unless I’m doing something I don’t think she’d like.”
    â€œSo what’s
that
tell you?” Woods said, and he got into the car.

12.
    DRURY HOUSE
CADOGAN ESTATE
20:53 HRS
    The beam of the Maglite torch cast moving shadows as Sam shone it into the corners of the stairwell. It illuminated discarded newspapers, chip trays and lager cans. Near his feet there were a couple of small syringes without needles. In other words, nothing.
    Sam gave the concrete steps a final sweep of the torchlight, then backed out.
    A few metres away PC Bob Mulvey was moving along a row of cars in the marked parking spaces below Drury House. He was shining his own torch between the vehicles in fast, jerky movements. Sam would have taken more time, but Mulvey seemed to be intent on covering the ground as quickly as possible – as if he was in a race and wanted to find the prize before anyone else beat him to it. The prize, of course, was the coat, shoes or bag belonging to Ashleigh Jarvis.
    â€œOi, copper. Lost your truncheon?”
    The mocking shout came from high up on one of the balconies and ended in a laugh. Sam looked up but couldn’t see anyone. That far away, the owner of the taunting voice knew he was safe.
    The cold wind and the renewed threat of rain had cleared the streets and paths around the Cadogan