laughed it off. I’m actually not sure if that was just before, or…it could have been earlier.” She made an exasperated sound. “It’s so hard to remember. But there wasn’t anything in his text messages after he’d died. Though…I suppose if some were deleted…Was there anything else I didn’t see?”
“We’re looking at the phone,” he said, and didn’t add that he was curious about that, too. He moved the conversation on to ask, “Could you confirm where you were earlier yesterday evening?”
“Yes, I was at Brett’s,” she said. “We all were.”
“The six of you?” Jojo nodded, and Jonah went on. “Did anything happen there that might have triggered the fire? Did any of them seem angry with you?”
“No,” Jojo said. And then she paused. “None of them seemed angry, but I suppose…I was saying that we needed to tell the truth, even things we weren’t sure about. I said it was time to tell everything, because Aurora’s killer was getting away with it.”
Jonah nodded, and Jojo gave him a thoughtful look.
“I wasn’t thinking that it was one of us really. I mean, I know logically…I just wanted us to find the killer, and for it to be someone else. That’s all.” And then Jojo’s eyes became distant again, and troubled, too. “I’ve spent eight years thinking I drove Aleksy to fall off the rock face with my calls and texts,” she said eventually, her voice unsteady. “But might he have died because…because he’d worked something out about Aurora?”
“There’s a strong possibility,” Jonah said. “So if anything occurs to you at all about Aleksy and any strange conversations, it would be good for us to know.”
Jojo nodded, her eyes fixed on a point on the wall. He wondered what she was remembering, but she said nothing.
“Tell me something,” he said, eventually breaking the silence. “When you hid that stash, did you do anything else that might have kept sniffer dogs away?”
“Oh,” Jojo said, and Hanson saw a flush creep across her face. “Yes. I’d…I dragged a dead stoat along past the tree and then left it a short distance away. I figured anyone searching would think the dogs had just found that, and would drag them away. It reeked, so…”
“You did that alone? Not with Brett?”
Jojo nodded, looking uncomfortable. “I told him to get on with hiding the stash, but he was hungover, and a bit useless. So I got the stoat and laid a scent, and he was still hanging about looking ill when I got back. And then after that we both went to cave the stash in.”
The DCI looked at her thoughtfully. “It was definitely your idea?”
“Yes,” Jojo said. “I wasn’t…I was only trying to stop them finding the drugs. I never meant to stop them finding Aurora.”
The DCI let a silence elapse, and then said, “Thank you for all of that. If you think of anything else, please just let us know.”
He turned off the tape, and Jojo rose with obvious relief.
“I’ll show you out,” he said, and gave Hanson a brief nod.
* * *
—
THEY WERE HALFWAY across CID when Jojo looked sideways at Jonah. “I’m glad you’re back to being nice again. I didn’t like my experience of Sheens the policeman back there.”
It was an uncomfortable feeling, being reminded that he was essentially a bully at times. Tommy Sheens had taught him well.
He gave her a slightly tired smile. “I’m always Sheens the policeman,” he answered. “But that doesn’t mean I’m an arsehole all the time.”
Jojo’s smile widened slightly. “Oh, I don’t know about that….”
Jonah couldn’t help a small laugh.
“Do you remember chasing me down?” she asked abruptly. They’d reached the door, but she paused in front of it, and he stopped, too. “You probably don’t. Life of a copper. But I do.”
“Yes, I do,” he said. He gave a small smile. “Most irritating person I’ve ever tried to catch up with.”
He saw her mouth lift slightly at the corner. “You should have given up.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you without your sweater.” He looked away for a moment. “And besides. I don’t give up. Not unless I absolutely have to.”
He saw her nod from the corner of his eye.
She shifted as if she might leave, and then said, “I heard about your dad. I know it was a long time ago, but I wanted to say I was sorry.”
Jonah shook his head. “I wouldn’t be sorry. Best thing that could have happened for my mum.”
Even if it had been horrific, the way