rugby club. One minute you were there, the next you weren’t.’
‘I didn’t go home that way,’ Pat said quietly.
‘What do you mean? There isn’t another…’
‘Can I top anybody’s wine up?’ Ellie said in a loud voice, giving Max a glare that only he and Leo could see.
* * *
Tom was watching reactions round the table. He’d been asked to see what gossip he could pick up, so maybe this would be as good a place as any to start.
‘How well did you know this girl, Pat?’ Tom asked. Pat had been pretty quiet all evening, and had seemed a bit bland in comparison to the others. If he’d been interviewing him though, Tom would have said that Pat was a man with something to hide.
‘I know her quite well. I look after the pastoral care side of things at school, and Abbie has a few issues. She’s a quiet, well-behaved girl, but she does have problems making friends.’
‘Obviously not as quiet as you think, darling,’ Mimi said. ‘What sort of fourteen year old is out on the streets at that time of night?’
Tom saw a brief spark of anger in Leo’s eyes. She spoke sharply, her cheeks flushed.
‘We don’t know what goes on behind closed doors, do we? We don’t know what her home life was like, and we shouldn’t condemn the girl out of hand.’
‘Her parents are good people,’ Pat said. ‘I doubt she was running away.’
‘I’m with Mimi on this,’ Gary added, twirling the stem of his wine glass in his fingers and studying the contents of his glass. ‘There’s no way that my kids will be out at that time of night when they’re that age. Bloody ridiculous.’
Pat’s lips had tightened.
‘I think it’s probably best to reserve judgement until we know a bit more, don’t you?’ he said.
Sean leaned forward so that he could speak to Tom across Gary and Penny. ‘I’ve got a fourteen year old stepdaughter myself. The parents must be going through hell. What are the chances of catching the person that did this, in your experience?’
Sean’s face was a picture of concern. He’d not had much to say up to now, and Tom had noticed a few times that he seemed a bit fidgety.
‘It depends,’ Tom answered. ‘There could be all sorts of forensic evidence; tyre tracks, paint or glass fragments, that kind of thing.’ Tom knew perfectly well that there was no evidence found at the scene, but he wasn’t about to say so. He expected every word he said would get round the village, and he sincerely hoped that somebody would soon be feeling very guilty, and very scared. ‘In this case, it seems that the girl was moved to the side of the road, so that could very well be a source of evidence, and of course there’s CCTV and ANPR.’
He noticed a few puzzled frowns.
‘I know what that is,’ Charles said, looking pleased with himself. ‘Automatic number plate recognition. Fancy cameras that can read the characters and store them. That might just catch the scoundrel who did this.’ He looked around the table from face to face, his eyes not settling for long on any one person.
‘Charles is right,’ Tom said. ‘I don’t know what the coverage is like around here, but I’m sure they’ll be checking to find out who was out and about at that time of night, using every resource possible. There’ll probably be some cameras on the main trunk roads and in the village - at the petrol station for example. Anybody who passed through might be questioned. I gather that the back road is mainly used by people from the village, so that might narrow things down a bit. And of course, they’ll be hoping that people who were driving in the area at the time will make themselves known to the police and make their job easier. Most people don’t realise how often they’re caught on camera, so let’s hope this bastard is one of them.’
The whole table was hanging onto Tom’s every word, as if absorbing the implications. Gary broke the silence.
‘Didn’t you say it was your end of term party last night, Max?’ he said. ‘I would have thought the back road would have been unusually busy. It’s the most direct route to the village after all. And I bet half of your mates were bladdered. You should tell your policeman pal that he should start there, Tom. At the school.’
Max sensibly declined to comment but he did look as if