---

Sam sits on the bed in his room at the Travellers’ Rest. The smell of smoke clings to everything. It can’t have been done out since the ban came in. The tiny TV babbles in the background.

He looks at his phone again, irritated at himself for going round in the endless loop of checking email, Facebook, the news. Almost a compulsive tic. After a few minutes, he shoves his phone and wallet into his pocket and heads down to reception. The foyer is deserted, a radio playing in a back room behind the counter.

‘Everything alright with your room?’ a girl says, seemingly appearing from nowhere behind the counter, dyed red hair scraped back so tight the surface is almost reflective.

‘Yeah, great, thanks,’ Sam says, sure the receptionist must know he is just being polite. Even more sure she doesn’t really want to know either way. Her gold badge says ‘Janine’ in black, the name flanked by three engraved stars on either side.

She gestures at the counter. ‘Help yourself.’ There’s a white dish full of doughnuts, drying out.

‘I’ve seen mints before – fruit, even – but doughnuts is a new one on me.’

Janine looks him up and down and shrugs, a non-verbal, ‘Suit yourself.’

---

The car park is dark and gravelly. In one direction, you can see only trees, a dense wooded area. The other way is a main road – a park and leisure centre on the opposite side. Attached to the hotel in the car park is a carvery-type pub. Inside, a young couple sits with a little girl, spooning ice cream into her mouth. It’s past her bedtime. Maybe it’s a birthday or perhaps they’re some of these mysterious people who come on holiday here. An older man and woman sit in what looks like silence, eating bright pink gammon and chips, the peas radioactive-green.

Sam decides to leave the car and walk into town, get a feel for the place. He passes a few closed sari shops, beautiful bright silks and beaded slippers in the window; Indian grocers with vegetables stacked outside. Warm, appetising smells drifting out. The area peters out, and closer to the station there are large supermarkets, all clustered together, two next to each other, one opposite. In the distance, he can see a large turquoise mosque turret. In the local paper, they said there was a petition against building a new mosque in the town, an EDL demonstration planned for the following month. A town that doesn’t like change, Sam thinks, remembering the hoo-ha about the footpath too.

Bits of Conley keep revealing themselves to Sam. He’d been surprised in a way by the dispiriting town centre, with its gaudy takeaways, shut-down shops and chain stores, compared to the journey in: the lush surrounding area, pockets of fields and farms. But even in the centre, every now and then between the buildings, or if you hit enough open space, you see a glimpse of the green hills again.

Sam walks around for a while, looking for the place he agreed to meet Martin when he dropped him off after the lake. Most of the pubs look pretty ropy, or empty, mostly both. Eventually, he wanders up a cobbled alley, following the sound of music and voices, somewhere that sounds a bit lively. That’s the place: the White Lion pub, the one Martin had mentioned. It looks cosy: low beams, white fairy lights strung outside. Pretty busy too. Couples having bar meals, a group of loud women crowded round a bottle of rosé wine.

Inside everything is wood and brass, a low ceiling. Sam isn’t especially tall, but even he feels like he needs to duck in a few places to avoid hitting his head on copper pots hanging down. The music is playing a bit too loudly, too: an irritating modern version of Tracy Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’, speeded up, bordering on the Chipmunks. Why? Sam thinks. Why mess with a song like that?

He winds his way to the bar and orders a pint of ale, one of the local ones, and some peanuts. The beer tastes hoppy and flowery, just how he likes it.

He takes his drink through to a smaller side room and sits at one of the tables. The room is old-fashioned with an organ in the corner and a space where an open fire would be – if there weren’t likely to be so many pissed people around. It’s like two pubs in one. A wannabe trendy bar on one side and an old man’s pub on the other. He’d stick with the old man’s side.

Sam sips his pint in silence. The pub is pretty full for a weeknight. A group of lads in football kits and high spirits have just come in. A man brushes past with a tray of drinks, knocking the table.

‘Oops, sorry, mate,’ he says, as he wipes the spilled beer off his hands.

‘No problem.’ Sam shoots him a smile and nods. ‘Do you live round here?’

The man gives him a confused look. ‘No, I just have a summer house here. For my holidays.’ He cocks his head towards Sam and says to his football friends at the table next to him, ‘Have you heard him?’

One of the friends smirks.

‘You parked your yacht up somewhere as well, have you?’ the man says.

‘I’m not from round here, actually.’

‘No shit, Sherlock,’ the man says in a poor attempt at a Welsh accent. ‘What are you doing here, then?’ He takes a slurp from his pint.

‘I’m making a film.’ Sam can hear the pride tinged in his voice and cringes.

The man’s eyebrows shoot up and he swallows his drink hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

‘You made anything I’ll have seen?’

‘Not yet. It’s a documentary.’

The man’s excitement wanes again. ‘So, you’re making a documentary? Here in Conley?’

Sam nods, looking over the top of his drink.

‘Wait wait wait, don’t tell me: let me guess.’ The man wiggles his fingers, like a hammy psychic. ‘Is it some do-gooding piece about the EDL thing and all the nasty racists that live here? Not being funny, but you do look the type.’ He touches his chin, gesturing at Sam’s beard, then folds his arms and wears a smug look like he’s guessed right.

‘Nope.’ Sam is annoyed at himself for being drawn into the exchange.

‘Mmm-hmmm but I’m close, right?’ The man is wedged back into the seat at the table next to Sam now, sitting with the group of men. They’re emitting a collective musky smell of deodorant.

‘Are you doing something on bent politicians? You should be. Robbing bastards,’ the man says, beer foam on his top lip.

‘No, I’m not here for that either.’ Although he makes a mental note to himself. ‘I’m here about—’

‘Oh, so it’s some happy clappy shite about the allotments or something—?’

Sam cuts him off. ‘You lived round here long?’

‘Twenty-seven years, since I was born.’ He gives Sam an exaggerated toothy smile, perfect whitened teeth.

Sam had taken him to be older from the toughened look of his skin, the lines around his eyes.

‘I’m here looking into the death of Victoria Preston.’

The man sticks his bottom lip out and shakes his head. ‘Not heard of her.’

‘Her body was found in the lake twenty years ago. She was fifteen.’

He scowls. ‘Oh yeah, I have heard people talking about that. I don’t remember it though. Too young.’ He picks up his drink and turns back to the group he’s sitting with. He says something to them and the table erupts into laughter.

Sam stares down into his drink until he becomes aware of someone standing over him – Martin.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ Martin says, carrying two pints – one for himself and one for Sam. He sits down at the table.

‘Getting acquainted with the locals, I see,’ Martin says, looking over at the men on the table behind.

‘Something like that.’ Sam thanks Martin for the drink with a nod.

‘How are you getting along, then?’ Martin asks. ‘Digging much up?’

‘Not bad, yeah. Got some stuff in the pipeline. Think I’ll be able to gather enough for the sizzle reel.’ Sam feels self-conscious using the terminology he’s not entirely familiar with himself.

‘The what now?’ Martin cocks his head to the side.

‘Sorry,’ Sam says. ‘Jargon. It’s like a demo tape to show companies a flavour of what the documentary will be like. You know – the tone of it, who some of the interviews will be. That kind of thing.’

‘Ah, I get you. Before they splash the cash.’ Martin rubs his fingers and thumb together.

Sam winces a bit at that. ‘Just the hoops you have to jump through,’ he says.

‘You think there might be interest, then? From TV companies?’ Martin asks.

Sam shrugs and takes another drink of his beer. ‘Hope so.’

‘It’s all the rage now, isn’t it? True crime.’

‘Suppose so, yeah.’ Sam shifts in his seat.

Sam had been to a documentary-making conference that spring and it came up time and time again: viewers – and therefore TV companies – were hungry for true crime TV. The UK’s answer to Making a Murderer, the TV version of Serial.

Sam feels his neck flush and he pulls himself up straighter on the stool. ‘And the good thing about that,’ he says, ‘is, you know, it could really help find Victoria’s killer, if lots of people are watching it.’

It sounds weak, like he’s trying to persuade himself, andSam thinks he can detect the faintest smile across Martin’s face, a knowing look. Judging him trying to make money from someone else’s misfortune, no doubt.

Martin jerks forwards, beer sloshing down the front of his shirt.

‘Watch it. For Christ’s sake.’ Martin turns to see who has bumped into him. Behind him is a woman clearly the worse for wear, mascara smudged under her glassy eyes.

‘Oops, sorry, love, I didn’t see you there,’ she slurs. She then deliberately tips part of her drink down Martin’s back. She covers her mouth and laughs, before the friend she is with drags her away by the sleeve of her jacket. The friend holds a hand out in apology.

Martin leaps from the stool, trying to the hold the fabric of his shirt away from his skin. Sam unrolls some cutlery from a napkin and passes the cloth to him.

‘What was all that about?’ Sam asks. The woman is nowhere to be seen in the bar now. She must have gone through to the party side.

Martin dabs at his shirt. ‘She’s a friend of my ex-wife,’ he says. ‘Not my biggest fan, you could say.’

Martin’s smile is tight, his temples flexed. He looks up like he’s going to say something else, his expression hard. But his glance wanders and his face softens. Sam turns to see a man weaving his way through the tables towards them. He is grey-haired, slightly built.

‘Martin,’ he opens his arms out. ‘Not often we see you round these parts these days. How the hell are you?’

‘Not bad,’ Martin says, still dabbing at his shirt.

‘Neil.’ The man puts his hand out to shake Sam’s.

‘Sam, nice to meet you.’

‘Couldn’t help overhearing,’ Neil says, helping himself to a seat. ‘When you were talking to that lot earlier.’ He looks across to the table of football lads. ‘You’ll get sod all out of the likes of them. Will he, Martin?’

Neil doesn’t wait for Martin to respond.

‘They probably don’t know who’s running the bloody country right now, let alone anything else. No sense of history,’ he says, shaking his head. He mimics pecking at a mobile phone with his fingers and screws up his face.

‘So Martin, what brings you in here? We don’t see you much these days.’

Martin shrugs his shoulders. ‘You know how it is. Work, eat, sleep… Sam here’s a film-maker. Wants to make a film about Victoria Preston.’

Neil swivels on his stool towards Sam. ‘Interesting. I thought I heard you asking about that.’

‘Neil knows everything and everyone in Conley,’ Martin says. ‘What he doesn’t know isn’t worth finding out.’

‘So you lived around here then, did you? You know about Victoria Preston?’ Sam asks Neil.

‘Me? Yes, of course. I’ve lived around here all my days. I recall it well. They might not tell you as much, but most people do. Everyone who was old enough to remember anyway. It changed the place. Didn’t it, Martin? Permanently, I’d say.’

Martin nods and takes a gulp of his drink.

‘What do you mean by that?’ Sam asks. ‘That it changed things permanently?’

‘Well, it’s never been exactly chocolate-box Cotswolds. I mean look around you.’ Neil tosses a look over his shoulder at the group of men at the next table. ‘But there was more of a sense of community then. A bit of a spirit of “it’s a shit town but it’s our shit town” about it, you know?’ He gives a flourish of his hand in the air. ‘But that, it knocked the wind out of us all. Kids weren’t allowed to play out, they weren’t even allowed to walk to school without their parents. There was this suspicion everywhere.’

Neil pulls his stool in, leaning further forwards, hitting his stride. ‘Do you know, I even think, in fact I know, I caught my wife looking at me sideways once or twice. Can’t blame people really. Then especially, but even now, you’re looking into people’s faces when you’re walking round.’ He comes close to Martin’s face then Sam’s for emphasis. ‘Was it you? Was it you? You know?’

‘What else do you remember about it, the time around then?’ Sam asks. Neil looks at Martin for an answer, perhaps conscious that he has dominated the conversation.

Martin readjusts himself, like he has been woken up in class. ‘Well, I agree with Neil. It made things very strange around here. A lot of suspicion.’

Neil is nodding along the whole time and takes the baton back from Martin, impatient. ‘And then all these things started to crawl out of the woodwork. Women, girls saying they’d been flashed at. Cars crawling past “offering people lifts”.’ He makes quote marks in the air when he says that.

Sam thinks of the tip-off he received on SomeoneMustKnow about the flashing, making a mental note to move it up his list.

‘And, of course, there was a really nasty rape up in the Brantham estate.’ Neil tuts to himself, shaking his head. ‘Not that there’s any other kind, of course.’

‘You thought it might be connected, then?’ Sam asks, taking a sip of his pint. It’s warm now, he’s been nursing it too long.

Neil waves at the air in front of them with his hand, and laughs and breathes at the same time, causing a little snort. He covers his mouth and nose, mock-coy. ‘Well, who knows? Oh, of course I don’t know anything about that side of it. But the whole thing just left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths. We weren’t the nice simple Yorkshire folk we wanted to think we were. I could have told anybody that anyway.’

‘You’ve never thought of leaving, then? Moving somewhere else?’ Sam says. Neil doesn’t strike him as the type of person who fits in around here.

Neil puts his hand on his chest. ‘Me? Oh God no! Where on earth would I go?’

Sam can’t tell if he’s being serious or ribbing him. Probably the latter, he thinks. A twinkle in his eye.

Neil hops up off his seat. ‘Right-oh, I am definitely getting myself another drink.’ The queue at the bar has cleared. ‘Anything for you two?’

‘No, you’re right, thanks,’ Sam says, and Martin shakes his head.

‘Suit yourself.’

After Neil walks away, Martin raises his eyebrows over his drink. ‘Pub – best place to come round here to find people to talk to.’

‘Isn’t it everywhere. How do you know Neil?’ Sam asks Martin.

Martin shrugs. ‘Around and about. Everyone knows everyone in Conley.’

Sam hoped Neil would come back, kicks himself for not accepting his offer of another drink. Over at the bar, Neil has already launched into another in-depth conversation with a few people standing nearby. ‘Holding court’ Sam’s mum would have called it. The group is hanging on his every word, occasionally exploding into fits of laughter.

Sam feels a tap on his shoulder from behind and jumps a little. The man from the next table.

‘Old twinkle toes been filling you full of shit, has he?’ He tips his head towards the bar.

‘Sorry?’

‘Honestly, he hardly knows what day it is.’ He twists his hand around near his temple.

Martin shakes his head. ‘Think I’m going to get off. Work tomorrow. Joys. Keep in touch, won’t you? If I can help at all while you’re here in town.’

‘Thanks, mate. Will do,’ Sam says. ‘Appreciate it.’

Sam slowly finishes off his pint and grabs his coat to leave. Outside, the woman who spilled the drink over Martin is smoking against the wall. Sam keeps going but she calls after him.

‘Where’s your mate?’ she says.

‘Sorry?’ Sam turns back to her.

The woman rolls her eyes, exasperated. ‘Where’s your mate? Where’s Martin?’

‘Oh, he’s gone home,’ Sam says.

‘Tina,’ the woman says, offering her hand. ‘You new round here? Not seen you before.’

‘Yeah, I’m just kind of visiting. I’m doing some research.’

‘Right.’ Tina keeps her eyes on him.

‘Victoria Preston case. I’m hoping to make a documentary about it.’

‘You are, are you? Digging all that up again, eh? What’s Martin got to do with it?’

‘Got to do with it?’ Sam says.

Tina tuts, irritated again. ‘How do you know Martin?’

‘Oh. Well I don’t, really, but we bumped into each other and he offered to show me around. Introduce me to a few people.’

‘Oh, he did, did he?’ Tina takes a drink from her glass. Looks like gin and tonic. ‘Where you stopping?’

‘Me? Travellers’ Rest,’ Sam says.

Tina splutters on her drink, laughing. ‘Lucky you!’

‘You’re not wrong,’ Sam says.

Tina starts typing into her phone, signalling that the conversation is over.

---

As Sam is walking away from the pub towards the hotel, buoyed by two pints of craft beer, an idea occurs to him. Now might be an ideal time to find out more about the taxi driver.

He misses it the first few times, but finds it when he retraces his steps along the high street and checks the map on his phone again. The little side alley, between a bank and a hairdresser’s, is completely unannounced. He goes down and it’s so narrow – barely wide enough for two people – that it feels as though the walls are closing in.

The bottom of the alley opens into a small yard, boxed in on all sides by the walls of buildings. There’s a sign outside one of the doors for Target Taxis. The small window has bars on it, the glass thick and opaque with dirt. Sam goes to open the door but it doesn’t move; he needs to press a buzzer.

‘Yes, love?’ A bored-sounding voice comes through the intercom.

Sam looks up and there’s a camera pointing down, right into his face.

‘Taxi?’ the Dalek-like voice asks.

‘I’m looking for Brian Addington.’ Sam speaks into the grubby intercom.

There’s a long pause. ‘All the fares cost the same, love. Doesn’t matter which driver you have.’

He goes to press the button to speak again, when the door blares and pops open, and a man comes out. He’s tall and broad, a large belly pushing against a straining shirt. He tips his weight back when he stands, jangling his keys in his hands. Wordlessly, he walks up the alley, whistling between his teeth, throwing his arm over to gesture for Sam to follow after him.

‘Where you going, mate?’

‘Travellers’ Rest, please.’

Once they are in the car, Sam catches sight of the driver’s badge swinging under the mirror. It is Brian, although he doesn’t look a lot like his picture. In the photo he’s much younger and slimmer.

Brian tuts under his breath, probably because the hotel is so close to where they are already.

Sam tries to gather his thoughts. He’d planned on finding out more about Brian, trying to get his contact details. He didn’t actually think he would be there. He hopes for traffic; should have thought of somewhere further away, but the lake would have been too obvious.

Sitting in the back, on the left side where Victoria sat, Sam stares at the back of Brian’s head, his hair threaded with wiry grey streaks. He was thirty-nine then, fifty-nine now.

The air freshener gives the car a talcy, sickly smell. Sam feels like he’s inhaling it, like it’s gumming up his insides. Brian turns the radio on low. A jingle for a local carpet company. He glances at Sam every few seconds in the mirror.

‘Funeral?’ he asks.

‘Sorry?’ Sam says.

‘Get a lot of folk stopping there for funerals. Family parties too. But a lot of funerals, it seems.’

Sam decides to own up. ‘I’m here making a film actually.’

Brian perks up at that, eyes tilting towards him in the mirror. ‘Oh, aye? What’s that all about, then?’

‘Documentary,’ Sam says.

Brian contorts his arm backwards to offer Sam a sweet from a paper bag. They’re all clagged together and it brings three others with it, bits of paper welded onto the side of the sweets.

‘Listen, it was you I wanted to speak to actually,’ Sam says. He can’t be sure but it feels like the car does a small swerve at that. ‘I’m researching Victoria Preston’s case.’

Brian snaps the radio off and spins his head round, taking his eyes off the road for a terrifying amount of time. This time the car jerks unmistakably. The skin on the back of Brian’s neck has flared red and the tendons are tightened. He doesn’t say anything for a while at first then he pulls into a retail park. It has a DIY store and the back entrance to McDonald’s, bins overflowing with burger boxes and cups with straws. They park facing a wall in the far corner of the car park.

Brian spins round in his seat, skin straining like his neck might tear open. ‘Are you trying to pull one over on me?’

‘No, look. Can I come and sit in the front? This feels ridiculous.’

‘You bloody sat there, for God’s sake.’ Brian turns to face forwards and Sam lets himself out and into the front seat. Brian is staring straight ahead out of the windscreen, chest slowly rising and falling.

‘How’d you find me anyway? Not that it’s a secret,’ Brian says, finally.

‘To be honest, I didn’t expect you to still be there – at the cab firm. Thought it would be a starting point,’ Sam says.

‘Why didn’t you expect me to still be there? Thought I should have moved away from here, eh? Scuttled off under a rock somewhere?’ His voice is raised now.

‘No, it’s not that. It’s a long time. Thought you’d have moved on to a different job,’ Sam says.

‘Nope. No career progression whatsoever. Thanks for the reminder.’

‘I didn’t mean anything by it, I was just…’

The silence hangs solid between them and then Brian breaks it, letting out a resigned sigh. ‘So, what is it you want, then? What do you want to do me for?’

‘You’re perhaps the last person who saw Victoria alive that night. So I wanted to interview you.’

‘Well, what can I tell you about her? I know as much as you – less probably. She got in my taxi, that’s it. I feel bloody bad about it, I do, but that’s really all there is to it. There isn’t much useful information I can tell you. Every day I wish I had just knocked off earlier that night. People still suspect me.’ He shakes his head.

Among the SomeoneMustKnow theories, almost no one thought Brian was guilty of Victoria’s death. But in Sam’s experience of reporting on crime – inhaling other people’s misery through all those books and TV shows – the last person to see someone alive is guilty of their murder a high percentage of the time. He tries to size Brian up.

‘I just wanted to hear your side of the story,’ Sam says. ‘Maybe if people see that, they’ll start thinking harder about what really happened to Victoria.’

Brian thinks for a bit, breathing loudly through his nose. He doesn’t say anything, but turns to Sam. Something has softened.

‘Have you told your side of things before?’ Sam pushes on. ‘You could maybe provide people that missing clue they haven’t had yet. Now is your chance. I’m offering it to you.’

Brian looks like he’s on the cusp. Sam stays very still, waiting for his response. Any sudden move could snap him out of it and make him change his mind.

‘Alright, I’ll do it,’ Brian says. ‘They’ll write and assume whatever they want anyway so I might as well try and have my say for once. I’ve got nothing to lose.’ He twists the mirror towards him and licks his finger to tidy up his eyebrows.

‘Can we do it at the hotel?’ Sam says. ‘It’s too cramped in here. I don’t have the camera.’

Brian scowls then nods.

They drive the rest of the way in silence. When they go into the hotel, Janine is on reception, reading a copy of a magazine. She looks up and her eyes follow them as they pass the desk. She’s probably dying to laugh about it with one of her colleagues.

Inside the room, Brian is eyeing everything up, like a builder sizing up a job, looking up at the corners and the ceiling, peeping behind the yellowing lace curtain. Sam arranges the chair, trying to find a camera angle which will hide the fact they’re in a dingy hotel room. Brian sits down on the cheap wooden chair. He looks too large for it, like it might collapse any second. None of the chair is visible except for the legs.

‘OK,’ Sam says, positioning the camera and switching it on. He sits on a chair diagonally across from Brian. He wants to move as quickly as they can so Brian doesn’t change his mind. ‘So, I think the best place to start is, can you tell me about that night, in your own words?’ Sam says, setting the camera to record.

Brian gives a big sigh, puffing out his cheeks. ‘It was just another night, you know. I’ve always worked the taxis – it’s not brain surgery or city trading or whatever, I know, but I like working when I want, within reason, and I like the wide range of people that you meet. My wife says it suits me because I enjoy gassing on with people and maybe that’s true.’

A strip of skin is showing between his jeans and his shirt. It has become partially untucked now and his swollen gut protrudes. Sam adjusts the camera slightly so it’s out of the shot.

‘So, that night…?’ Sam isn’t sure if Brian is deliberately obfuscating or just easily sidetracked.

Brian takes another deep breath. ‘Yes, so. It was a Saturday night and it had been pretty steady – pubs kicking out and that, but it wasn’t as busy as usual because it was towards the end of the month – for paydays and that, you know, and because of the time of year, what with holidays – people were on them, saving for one or skint after getting back. It’s always the same. In this line of work you get to know the rhythms of the year.’

He seems to drift off and lose his thread again.

‘Would you say you remember the night clearly, Brian?’

He pauses before answering. ‘Yes, yes absolutely, as a bell. I have a good memory anyway – you have to remember all the streets and pubs and random little places that people want to go to. We didn’t have satnavs and whatnot then and I don’t use one now. It’s up here.’ He taps a finger on the side of his temple.

‘So, picking up Victoria?’

‘Yes, so Helen, the lass on the switchboard, sent me a job through the system. And she said it was for a Victoria and was at the phone box on Thistle Street. Nothing special in that at all, of course, but it stayed with me because of what happened after. Strange the things that lodge themselves.’ He looks childlike fiddling with his hands in his lap.

‘And was that unusual in itself?’ Sam says. ‘To be picked up from somewhere like that?’

‘God no, you pick people up all sorts of places, believe me. Places they probably shouldn’t be plenty of times. But if it’s not illegal – or obviously dodgy anyway – then I try to mind my own. I just drop people where they want to go and that’s it. I’d never make any money otherwise. My job is to get people from A to B, not to get involved in why they want to get there or where they’ve been… So no, I didn’t think a lot of it when the call came in, but I did wonder when I turned up and it was a young lassie. Petite little thing she was – you’ll know that anyway – and she was sitting out on the kerb in the rain.’

Brian shakes his head, lost in thought. ‘I felt a bit sorry for her as soon as I seen her. I’m a big softie, that’s what my wife always says too. She looked a bit lost or something. But then I thought to myself it was probably just because of the weather.’

‘So…’ Sam says, but Brian doesn’t notice Sam speaking and drifts into his next sentence.

‘You know, I often think the weather worked against her that night. Hadn’t rained for weeks either.’ He shakes his head.

‘So, Victoria simply got in the car?’ Sam succeeds this time and it snaps Brian out of something.

He refocuses. ‘Yes, she sat where you were sitting today. Not a fact lost on you, I am sure.’ Brian gives Sam a snide smile.

‘And did she say anything or…?’

‘She just said she wanted to go to the lake and I remember saying, “Are you sure?” because of the weather, you know? And the time of night. Anyway, she was upset; she was kind of snivelling a bit. I didn’t feel like I could really push it with her so I set off.’

Sam wonders how much of this is true; how much of it is how Brian wishes he had behaved. Did he really just take the money, ask no questions and think nothing more of it? It’s what most people might do.

‘You didn’t think about asking her more?’ Sam says. ‘Checking she was alright, or telling her you couldn’t take her?’

‘I have a daughter myself, Layla – it’s my favourite name, after the Eric Clapton song, you know the one?’

Sam pictures Brian’s thoughts bouncing around, each one triggering a new tangent. Interviewees are like that a lot.

‘OK, so I was just asking whether…’

After a pause, Brian ploughs on, though. ‘My Layla, she’s still my little girl. She was about twelve then. Bit younger than the Preston girl, but close enough. I’d learned a bit about bringing up girls. I knew if I pushed too much, she’d retract. She might try and walk up there to the lake or something, I thought. And that would be worse, wouldn’t it? On those roads in that weather. So, better I took her at least, that’s what I thought. Sometimes, my daughter, she’ll swear black is white just to disagree with me. They’re bloody murder at times.’ Something passes across his eyes, regret at the choice of term maybe.

Sam has to smile at this, though, as he recognises it from Natalie.

‘I suppose I just had to make a decision and go with it and that’s what I did. But I do blame myself,’ Brian says. ‘I should have followed my gut.’ He taps his round stomach. ‘There was something about it I didn’t like, but it was late, I wanted to get home. I was selfish, in a way, although if it hadn’t turned out the way it had, I probably wouldn’t have thought much of it again.’

Sam nods.

‘Thing is,’ Brian says. ‘She was a young lass; I didn’t want to get into a “situation”, didn’t want to be accused of anything, if I’m honest. You can’t be too careful these days. Anyway, that didn’t work out too well, did it?’ He gives a hollow laugh.

‘So, you just drove Victoria to the lake and that was it or…?’

‘I asked her once more if she was sure she wanted to go there, to the lake. I asked what she was doing up there on a night like that and she just said she was meeting someone. She was snappy, she didn’t want to chat, let’s say. You can tell very easily what’s what when you been doing this job a while.’

‘And what did you think?’

‘I just assumed she was meeting some lad. God knows why there, I thought, and perhaps I didn’t want to know, having my Layla and that. I thought, she’ll be meeting her boyfriend or whatever, probably a no-bloody-hoper who’s too old for her anyway, and that was that. I didn’t think a huge amount more about it, to be honest. I went home, I had a Chinese and I went to bed. I mean… no that’s a lie. I did think about it a bit. I thought again to myself how it was a little odd and how she’d be cold and wet in that weather. I heard the rain when I was in bed and I thought about her. More in a “bloody kids” type way. I assumed she’d be somewhere warm and dry by then. That was it really.’

‘Did she say anything? When you dropped her off?’

‘Nope she just shoved some money in my hand and she got out.’

‘And where did she go? You didn’t see anyone else?’

‘I can still see her now. She was standing in the headlights and she had her hand up to her face like the lights were hurting her eyes.’ He puts his own hand up, palm out. ‘So I lowered them, but when I looked up she was walking away, with her back to me. And soon, with the rain, I just couldn’t see her any more.’

He exhales quickly, the breath popping between his lips. ‘Still gets me, you know?’ he says, bumping his fist on his chest.

‘And how has it affected you? Do you ever think about it?’

This puts the colour back into his face. ‘Are you kidding? I almost lost my wife. My daughter was looking at me funny for months. Even now, people have their doubts about me. They checked my car, you know. At the time – forensics and all that. They didn’t find anything they shouldn’t.’

Brian bites at his lip at that. There’s something he isn’t sure about saying, Sam can tell. Waiting usually flushes it out and it works here too.

‘I always wash the car on Sunday mornings. Usually anyway, sometimes Mondays,’ Brian says eventually.

‘What do you mean?’ Sam looks up.

‘They thought there was something in it that I had washed my car, but you can ask my wife – I often did it Sundays and it was muddy from the weather.’

Sam files that away mentally, keeping his face neutral. He pushes his weight down into the chair. ‘But now you have a criminal record, don’t you?’

Brian’s eyes dart up, but then he regains his composure. He slumps in the chair and a section of the seat is visible between his legs. He points at the camera and shakes his head.

‘It’s just a few more questions,’ Sam says.

‘That’s not fair – you’ve got me here under false pretences.’

‘Not really,’ Sam says. ‘It’s just about—’

Brian stands to leave and starts to collect his coat.

‘OK, OK. Sam gets up and fiddles with the camera before giving Brian a ‘tah-dah!’ gesture. ‘It’s off,’ Sam says.

Brian sits back down slowly, eyeing the camera cautiously like it’s a predator about to pounce.

‘Listen, I’m not a violent person, I never have been.’ Brian shakes his head, looks up at the ceiling and twists the ring on his little finger. ‘I went out into town for my wife’s birthday, right. First night I’d had out in ages. I prefer to drink in the house. Full of scum in town. You know the worst of it? I actually had a good night. We had a few drinks, bit of a laugh. It was good to see my wife enjoying herself. For us to have a bit of fun. We should have gone home after the pubs shut but she wanted to go dancing. We went along to Charlie’s in town. It’s gone now, shut down. Shithole anyway. Some little gobshite starts goading me and that on the dance floor. I said we should just go, but he wouldn’t leave it. And it was about Victoria and I just saw red and…’

‘And what?’ Sam says.

‘Boom, there was commotion everywhere and I had a broken bottle in my hand, he had blood pouring out of his face.’

‘You glassed him?’

‘That’s what they tell me. Yeah, I must have done. I just kind of blanked out. I’d had too much to drink. I was so angry. Never happened before, never since. He hit a nerve, I guess.’

‘Never?’ Sam ventures.

Brian snaps straight back, ‘Never. I told you, didn’t I?’ He looks at Sam. ‘So don’t be twisting it, right?’ All the softness in his voice and expression is gone now.

Seeing Brian get worked up like that, Sam still can’t imagine him completely losing it. Enough to kill someone. A customer. Could Victoria have said something, done something, rejected him in some way to make the same happen at the lake? Sam scrutinises Brian, his neck expanding and contracting, blood pumping at the memory of the incident at the club.

‘”Missing.”’

‘Sorry?’ Sam says.

‘Everything but the Girl. That’s the song that was playing when it all happened at the club. Weird that I remember that bit, eh?’ Brian stands up in one swift move, the wood of the chair creaking back into shape. ‘Well, good luck with it. With finding out what happened to her,’ he says.

Sam fumbles in his pocket, fishing out a crumpled ten-pound note.

‘For the cab fare,’ he says, but Brian just waves it away.

‘Forget about it, mate.’ He pauses at the door. ‘I hope I don’t regret this.’

---

Sam watches out of the window, waiting for Brian to reappear and get into his car. Brian looks around like he’s worried about being seen there. Then he just sits in the car for a while. Sam can’t see Brian’s face, but his hands are flat on the dashboard.