‘Do you think your mother ever felt like that?’

  ‘No!’ Tom shouted, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. ‘She had me, you see,’ he said. ‘She had me and she didn’t need anyone else.’

  He leaped up, ran out of the room and they heard the clatter of his feet on the stairs, followed by a door slamming, somewhere above their heads.

  ***

  ‘Was it really necessary for you to ask the boy about his father’s death, on top of everything else?’ Mr Jenkins chastised Judith, after all sounds associated with Tom’s exit had faded.

  Judith’s stare would have frozen the sun. ‘I am not in the habit of causing unnecessary distress to anyone, I can assure you,’ she replied.

  Mr Jenkins met her gaze and then lowered his head. ‘Yes, of course. I am sure you are only doing what you need to do.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s very gracious of you. Is Tom a good student, can I ask?’

  ‘He’s above average, certainly, but not very engaged. His teachers all think he could do better, but he maintains he’s working flat out. And his mother, well, she would never push him. She always backed him up.’

  Constance marvelled at Judith’s skill. In the space of a few words, she had shifted Mr Jenkins from moral outrage to compliant lapdog and, at the same time, she had complimented him for his past behaviour.

  ‘And, in the circumstances, you didn’t press too hard?’

  ‘That’s right. We hoped that, as things got more serious, academically, he would step up.’

  ‘And he hasn’t?’

  ‘Not really. It’s a shame. A real shame. I mean, I worry what he’ll do when he leaves here. He doesn’t seem to have any interest in university or college or any of the apprenticeships we promote.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll do all you can to motivate him, at the right time.’ Judith smiled warmly.

  ‘Can I just ask if you ever saw or heard anything – maybe the boys talk among themselves – anything that might point to Dr Sullivan having an enemy?’

  ‘We’re a long way removed from the boys’ private lives here. Parents visit for events but, generally, they arrive to take the boys home and we don’t interact much. Dr Sullivan was very local, of course. Some families aren’t.’ Mr Jenkins had now unfolded his arms and was speaking freely for the first time.

  ‘And when was Tom last home?’

  ‘We don’t have a half-term break, but he had a weekend at home at the beginning of October. It was his birthday, so I made a special exception.’

  ‘And Dr Sullivan picked him up and drove him back?’

  ‘I think so. I doubt we have any way of checking.’

  ‘Was Tom in regular contact with his mum?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘They don’t receive letters?’

  ‘The boys mostly communicate by phone or online.’

  ‘And you don’t monitor that?’

  ‘We don’t listen in on their personal interactions, no.’

  ‘So, what, they have access 24/7 to their phones and the internet?’

  ‘They are not allowed phones during the school day, but there are no limits at other times for Tom’s year group. We trust the boys to be sensible, but we do keep an eye on them, even so. Occasionally, there are problems which arise and then we have to act.’

  ‘What kind of problems?’

  Mr Jenkins suddenly stiffened up. ‘We seem to have strayed from your original area of interest which, as I recall, was Dr Sullivan,’ he said. ‘And I think I answered all your questions in that regard.’

  ‘Yes, you did. You’ve been very helpful. Just one more thing, just in case we need to speak to Tom again, it occurred to me when you were talking about his future, will he stay here at school, now? I mean, presumably a place here is, understandably, costly.’

  ‘We’re not sure,’ Mr Jenkins said, after a short pause. ‘Like I said, I certainly hope so, but it may be out of my hands.’

  ***

  ‘He didn’t seem difficult to me.’ Constance and Judith stood outside the entrance, after saying their goodbyes.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Dr Williams, Dr Sullivan’s colleague. He said Tom was a difficult boy; to be prepared.’

  ‘He flounced out of the room when the questions got the tiniest bit uncomfortable.’

  ‘That’s unfair. You told him his mother had depression and, like the headmaster said, you talked about his father too. That would be difficult for anyone to cope with, let alone a boy who’s grieving. I knew you were going to ask him something awkward. You looked up at the painting. I could tell.’

  ‘Actually, I was thinking how incongruous it was that a man who abhorred slavery, our illustrious school patron, Mr Wilberforce, was being exposed every day, from his vantage point, to the machinations of a modern-day slaver, in the form of Mr Jenkins and his rigorous school regime.’

  ‘You just thought of that now, but you don’t want to be caught out.’

  Judith grinned. ‘You’re probably right…about me and about Tom’s exit. It was certainly within the bounds of normal responses. His hands were shaking though, even when we first arrived. Did you see?’

  ‘Yes. Poor thing.’

  ‘I do wonder that she sent him away.’

  ‘Dr Williams said she was lecturing around the world, was worried she couldn’t look after him properly. Said they spent a lot of weekends together to make up for it.’

  ‘Jenkins didn’t say that, did he? Suggested Tom was only allowed home for holidays or “special exceptions”. That’s why I took against Jenkins, by the way, in case you think I had no justification. What do I know? I imagine Elizabeth Sullivan was just trying to do what was best for Tom. And if he knew his mum was on anti-depressants, he did a tremendous job at covering up.’

  ‘Why would he know?’

  ‘I think it must be hard to keep secret, if you live together, even if it’s only weekends and holidays. Pills in the cabinet, pills by the bed, take after food, with water. Maybe that’s another reason she sent him away. Mr Jenkins was defensive though, wasn’t he?’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I can’t believe they don’t have more control over what the boys are accessing online. Teenage boys! What do the parents think of that?’

  ‘And I can’t believe you asked him if the kids write letters to their parents. When did you last receive a letter from anyone under the age of twenty-one?’

  Judith smiled.

  ‘How many minutes till our Uber?’ she asked.

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Let’s meet it by the road. It was warm in there, wasn’t it? Although I appreciate it’s all relative. I am currently residing in the foothills of the Himalayas.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My boiler’s on the blink. Anything vaguely temperate feels like the Costa del Sol.’

  As they approached the gates, they heard a rustle and a cough and then a tall boy, in matching school uniform to Tom, stepped out in front of them.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, waving one hand at them.

  ‘Hello,’ Judith answered.

  ‘You’ve been to see Tom?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Judith said. ‘Are you one of his friends?’

  ‘I’m David. We share a room.’ The boy peered over his shoulder towards the school and stepped back into the bushes, out of sight of the entrance. Constance and Judith followed suit.

  ‘Was there something you wanted to tell us?’ Judith said.

  ‘It’s about Tom. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘We’re not…’Constance began, but Judith drowned her out. ‘Tell us what’s bothering you?’ she said.

  David bit his lip, wrung his hands together and gazed again at the school façade, before speaking. ‘I think Tom has a problem,’ he said.

  ‘What kind of problem?’

  ‘Gaming. Online games. Mr Jenkins gave him his laptop, kind of, to cheer him up, I s’pose. But he’s playing all the time, getting all wound up. Forgetting to eat or drink, just wanting to win. He says it helps him. I promised I wouldn’t tell Mr Jenkins.’

  ‘I see,’ Judith said, catching Constance’s questioning eye.

  ‘Do you think I should tell him? Mr Jenkins.’ David was shifting from one leg to the other, as he simultaneously weighed up his loyalties. ‘I don’t want Tom to get ill or anything.’

  ‘A promise is a promise,’ Judith said. ‘And I think it’s important that Tom has a good friend he can trust right now.’ She smiled at David and he smiled in return. ‘Leave this with us,’ she said, turning around and heading out of the gates. ‘We’ll see what we can do.’

  ***

  ‘Well, that may explain the hands shaking,’ Judith commented, half to herself, as she and Constance stood on the platform at Mill Hill station, waiting for their train.

  ‘You mean Tom?’

  ‘Yes. And the poor academic performance. Any ideas on what we could do for him, given that, officially, it isn’t any of our business and we probably have a fairly good idea what response we’ll get from Mr Jenkins, should we choose to interfere?’

  ‘There’s supposed to be a sister. I’ll check with Dawson if she’s been found yet. We could talk to her.’

  ‘Good idea. And those medical papers Liz wrote, do they explain how to stop teenage boys playing games?’

  ‘Not the ones I’ve read so far. I could ask Dr Williams. I could do it without mentioning Tom?’

  ‘Good idea number two. Was there anything Tom told us we could use? Maybe find those friends of Liz’s. Dawson may already have their details.’

  ‘I doubt it. He made it pretty clear he stopped investigating when he found Jaden.’

  ‘Not that surprising, I suppose. All right. Let’s take stock of where we are with the industrious Jaden.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Is he still impressing you with his wisdom?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Constance said.

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’

  Constance sighed deeply. ‘He’s been more cooperative, actually – opened up a bit more. And his answers with Dawson were calm. He didn’t lose the plot when he could have done, when Dawson pressed him. It’s just…I don’t know…the rape charge.’

  ‘What? It’s made you feel uncomfortable?’

  ‘I don’t get it. I was happy to pull my chair up close and play his buddy when he was accused of murder, of taking someone’s life, but when Dawson accused him of rape and, just like that, matter-of-fact, afterwards, he admitted the sex – he says consensual – something changed in me. I…I just wanted to get out of there.’

  ‘Look. I don’t know why you felt like that. I suppose this murder, if it even was a murder, was so clean, no blood, no bruises. It was easy to accept Jaden’s explanation, albeit it had to be wheedled out of him. Now, we’re all suspicious that there’s more to come.’

  ‘I’m not suspicious, though; not yet, anyway. And, although I told him off for keeping it to himself, I can see why he wouldn’t own up, in the circumstances. I suppose it was two things that bothered me; he was so casual and relaxed about the sex, and that…offended me, somehow. And then he made me doubt everything I had believed about the case up till then. I had thought I knew him, but I realised, in that second, that I didn’t know a thing about him.’

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up over it. We have to make judgment calls all the time and we can’t even begin to know the half of our client’s lives. It’s better if you’re more…distant. That way you’ll be more objective. Did he accept he used ropes? I saw the report about marks on her arms.’

  ‘He says that’s rubbish. He seemed quite…insulted.’

  ‘But you believed him, that it wasn’t rape?’

  ‘Yes. I really did. I believed him, but the uneasiness remained.’

  ‘All right. We’ll need to get the rape stuff out there, right at the beginning then. No light touch. The jury will need to feel that distaste you experienced at the outset, and then get over it, before they judge him. What about the trainers, bought with Liz Sullivan’s credit card? Have you asked him about that yet?’

  ‘It’s next on my list.’

  ‘Keep me posted on his response. What else?’

  ‘No history of violence, caution in 2018 for possession of marijuana, another before that, for theft of a wallet from a teacher. Lives with a school friend, Nathaniel Brooks, who spent a year in a young offenders’ institution.’

  ‘Ah. Do we know why?’

  ‘I’m working on it.’

  ‘You’ve been to see him?’

  ‘He’s nervous about being a witness. But I think, with help, he’ll come good. His evidence supports JD – especially the timing. He says JD was back in time for their show, that he wasn’t upset or agitated.’

  ‘That’s good. We shouldn’t underestimate the importance of having that confirmed by someone else, even a close friend. And their show was live, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, maybe we find one or two fans who can say they watched all night, that kind of thing. Was JD on screen throughout the show?’

  ‘I haven’t checked.’

  ‘You need to, although of course it’s all irrelevant if Elizabeth Sullivan was already dead. Back to Jaden then. No other family, you’ve said. Makes a good income from his gaming, money in the bank, pays rent on time. There’s no motive, is there? Let’s say he did steal her credit card and he bought the trainers. What did they cost? A hundred pounds?’

  ‘More like two hundred.’

  Judith raised her eyebrows. ‘Even then. He’s going to kill her for a pair of trainers?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Listen. For a second, let’s just assume he did it, test out that motive. It was an accident. He misread the signs. He said he wasn’t used to drinking wine and they had a bottle between them. He thought Liz fancied him. She was just being friendly, returning a favour. He pressed her for sex. She resisted, he persisted and her heart gave out. He panicked. On his way out, he picked up her bag. Maybe there was something identifying him on her phone? The invitation to come over or a photo? He took the bag to cover his tracks.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘But couldn’t resist using the credit card?’ Judith pressed her fingers against her lips. ‘It doesn’t stack up,’ she said. ‘If he wanted to conceal his involvement, he would have chucked the bag and all its contents; not allowed an easy connection straight back to him.’

  ‘Unless he was super-confident no one would make the link. I think we need more on the cause of death.’

  ‘I absolutely agree. Not many forty-year-old women die of previously undiagnosed heart conditions. I’m going to talk to a pathologist I know, see if he can make some sense of it. Maybe that’s our best defence.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That the police got it right at the start. It was natural causes. Tragic as it is, Elizabeth Sullivan just died in her sleep and it was nothing to do with her encounter with Jaden.’

  ‘OK. If your pathologist will support that, it might work.’

  ‘But we’d have to persuade him to admit to the theft. Maybe, we could even get Dawson to do a deal. Jaden pleads guilty to the theft, gets a suspended sentence and the rest is dropped.’

  Constance shrugged.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve given up before we’ve even started,’ she said.

  ‘That’s unfair. If this was only about me, I’d be happy to fight every time, you know that. But it’s not. I’m thinking about the boy, Jaden, how it will play out in court. On his own evidence, he was there with her, just before she died. And, despite my strategy for dealing with the rape allegation, the jury will hate the sex thing. You hate it and you’re defending him and, on top of their revulsion, they’ll have Thomas Sullivan sitting in the courtroom, virtually the same age as Jaden. Even if they believe Jaden, they’ll feel uncomfortable with it, that it shouldn’t have happened. Add in the trainers and the lies he told when he was picked up...’

  ‘OK. I’ll talk to Jaden about the theft. But you’ll talk to your pathologist friend?’

  ‘I will. And those research papers. I want to see them too, remember.’

  The train pulled into the station and they stepped inside the carriage and sat down. Two minutes into their journey, Judith stood up, grabbed the overhead strap. Then she gravitated to the vertical bar nearest the door and allowed herself to be thrown around, anchored by the wrist, as the train bumped its way along to the next station. Constance couldn’t work out why Judith would wish to stand, when there were seats free, but she knew better than to question her when she had that serious ‘thinking’ look on her face. Not long after, Judith reclaimed her seat, as jerkily as she had left it. For the rest of the journey, they each sat in silence, reflecting on the day’s events.

  15

  Constance stood outside the interview room for a few seconds longer than usual, trying to work out the best way to approach things with Jaden, without it appearing like a total betrayal. She knew Judith was right, though. Although the evidence was circumstantial, it didn’t leave him in a strong position, unless something else turned up to point to another culprit. Taking a deep breath and smoothing down her hair, she pushed the door open.

  Jaden was sitting slumped in his chair, his back to the door. Today he was in more modest clothing; grey tracksuit bottoms and a blue top, but without seeing his face, she couldn’t begin to assess how he was feeling.

  ‘Hi, Jaden.’

  ‘Hi.’ He hardly moved.

  ‘Would you rather I call you JD? That’s what you like people to call you, isn’t it?’

  A shrug.

  ‘I talked to Nathaniel. He seems like a good friend.’ She sat down and waited, but he didn’t respond. ‘Look. There’s been a couple of developments. The police have Liz’s handbag, but it was empty, found in a place called Golders Hill Park, near Golders Green, North West London. Do you know it?’