door. ‘What’s he gone and done now? KEVIN, get out here.’
‘He’s not done anything wrong,’ Millie said, as a worried looking ten-year-old emerged from his bedroom dressed in an England rugby shirt.
‘Hello Kevin,’ Millie smiled, stepping into the hallway. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about what happened last year, when you saw Will Clarke fall off the roof? You don’t find it upsetting, do you?’
‘No,’ Kevin said, resenting the suggestion that he might be squeamish.
Millie noticed another boy had his head sticking out of the bedroom.
‘That’s Adrian, his partner in crime,’ Mrs Milligan grinned as she pushed up the front door shut. ‘He was there as well.’
‘Excellent,’ Millie said. ‘I can ask you both. It shouldn’t take long.’
Kevin led Millie into his bedroom. The boys had snacks and a Scalextric set spread over the carpet. Millie sat on the edge of Kevin’s duvet, while Mrs Milligan stood in the doorway.
‘We seem to have lost the statements you gave,’ Millie explained. ‘I wanted to know if you’d remembered seeing anything.’
‘I never saw anything except the boy hitting the ground,’ Kevin explained. ‘I legged it and this cop came charging round the corner and knocked me flying.’
‘Which officer was that?’
‘The Indian one.’
‘Sergeant Patel?’
Kevin nodded. ‘Yeah, he was running off the staircase.’
Millie realised this was significant: Michael had always claimed that he’d just arrived on the estate and was getting out of his car when he heard Hannah scream out.
‘What about you, Adrian? What did you see?’
‘I saw the boy falling. Then I looked up and I thought I saw another man up there.’
‘Really?’ Millie said.
Mrs Milligan looked mystified. ‘Are you sure you saw someone, pet? Only all the papers and that said it was an accident.’
‘Well I wasn’t really sure, because I only saw it quickly. But it was like there was a man or something up there.’
‘And what about your friends?’ Millie asked. ‘Were you the only one who thought you saw something?’
Adrian shook his head. ‘No miss. Robert did as well. Me and him both thought we saw something.’
15:18
James asked if he could come to the hotel, where he’d get a much better idea what was going on, but John told him to stay put at Palm Hill in case anything unexpected cropped up.
He crashed on his bed listening to the messages going back and forth on the two-way radio and he rang Lauren a couple of times for an update. She told him about Alan Falco losing the boys’ statements and that John and Ray McLad were driving out to his house.
James felt down, lolling around on his own while things spiralled off in all kinds of exciting directions without him. He realised that the mission was drawing to its end and he wondered if Kyle and the others were still going to be blanking him when he got back to campus.
Then he remembered Hannah and sent her a text saying that he was sorry about the way he’d behaved earlier on. She didn’t reply.
15:52
After retiring, Alan Falco and his wife had moved out to Southend on the Essex coast. John and Ray had taken forty minutes to drive out from east London.
‘Nice house,’ John said, as they walked up a row of steps to the front door.
Ray pointed out the sticker in the back window of Falco’s car: Another Satisfied Customer of TARASOV PRESTIGE MOTORS.
When nobody answered the doorbell, John went up on tiptoes and peered into the back garden. The next-door neighbour gave John a fright as he shouted over the wall.
‘The old boy’s a bit deaf. He’s out in the greenhouse.’
‘Thanks,’ John smiled.
He opened the wooden gate into the back garden. Ray followed him across a neatly mowed lawn and into a huge greenhouse stuffed with flowers.
‘Mr Falco?’ John asked.
Falco was in his late fifties, but looked older. The grey beard, open-necked shirt and braces fitted Millie’s description of him seeming like a nice old stick.
‘Beautiful plants,’ John said. ‘Must take a lot of work.’
Falco smiled. ‘I have a lot of time on my hands, Mr …?’
John left Ray to flash his warrant card. ‘I’m Inspector McLad, CIB. My colleague is Mr Jones.’
‘CIB,’ Falco smiled. ‘Have I been a naughty boy?’
‘Statements relating to the death of Will Clarke,’ McLad said, cutting straight to the point. ‘Do you remember taking any?’
‘Or taking bribes from Leon Tarasov to lose them?’ John added.
The old stick’s face tightened up. John pulled a cassette recorder out of his pocket and pushed the play button.