Callum sat on the arm of the sofa. It creaked under his weight. Marcus sank down into the cushions beside him. Why couldn’t the silly boy just have gone to the house party in the first place, like he’d said?

‘No need to look so worried, Marcus.’ The PC smiled, trying to put him at ease, but her kindness made him tense up more. ‘I just want to go over a few things again, like when you took Rain outside for some fresh air. No trick questions, I promise.’

‘You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, son. I can insist we have a lawyer.’

‘Mr Rodway, I understand your concern. But this really is just a chat, so we can piece together a timeline.’ A smile again, doing nothing to allay Marcus’s fears. ‘If you can start from when she said she felt sick.’

‘Like I said, I took her out the back to get some air. She took a few deep breaths. We stood there and listened to the sea. I asked her if she wanted to go home, but she said no. She wanted to stay out.’

‘OK,’ PC Wyndham replied, waiting for her colleague to write everything down. ‘So where, exactly, were you standing?’

Marcus swallowed. ‘After we went outside, we walked down towards the sea. We ended up down by the railings overlooking the beach.’

‘And while you were walking down, or when you were down by the railings, did you touch Rain at all?’

‘Really!’ Callum said. ‘What kind of question is that?’

‘If you can’t remain silent, Mr Rodway, I’ll have to ask you to leave.’ The officer raised her eyebrows.

Marcus’s breath was shallow. ‘No, I swear I didn’t do anything!’ His fists balled up, pressing into the cushions. ‘I mean, maybe I put out a hand to steady her or something. She was pissed.’ Marcus stared at his feet.

‘So you didn’t kiss her?’

‘Maybe like just a peck. I dunno.’

‘Was there any other sexual contact between you?’ PC Wyndham pressed on. ‘Did Rain tell you to stop?’

‘Not really,’ he said, trying to swallow. His mouth and throat were so dry.

‘Don’t say anything else, Marcus.’ Callum stood up. ‘I’m not happy with you asking these types of questions without my son having a lawyer. It sounds to me like you’re blaming him for her disappearance even though he behaved like a responsible teenager by helping the girl.’

‘Mr Rodway, please calm down. If you like, we can conduct this interview under more formal conditions down at the police station. I thought it was in Marcus’s interests to keep things informal.’ She turned back to him. ‘Please, Marcus, if you know of any reason why Rain might be upset, then you must tell me.’

Marcus suddenly stood, throwing his hands above his head before dropping them down by his thighs. ‘I fancied her, all right? I thought she was leading me on. She was flirting back. She let me do stuff.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ Callum said, thumping the sofa arm. ‘Marcus, don’t say another word.’

‘No, Dad, because I didn’t do anything wrong.’ He stared at his father.

‘Carry on, Marcus,’ the PC said.

‘It was, like, we were holding each other and stuff. It was just me holding her up at first, but then she was, like, pressing against me. I thought she wanted it too.’ Tears filled Marcus’s eyes. He slumped back down in the chair again.

‘I’ll ask you again, where were you at this time?’

‘He’s already told you he didn’t do anything.’ Callum was red and sweating.

‘Mr Rodway, this really is your final warning before I’ll be forced to take Marcus in for questioning. Please, let him answer.’

‘We were down by the railings by this time. Then…’ He looked down at his fingers, knotted in his lap. ‘Then we kind of staggered away a bit. There was this brick wall, a little way along.’

‘Go on…’

Marcus shrugged.

‘Did you have sex with Rain, Marcus?’

‘No,’ he said, not looking up. ‘I didn’t.’

‘You say you have CCTV footage, so why not look at it and see that my son is telling the truth.’ Callum tried to stay calm. The girl was clearly a predator.

Marcus screwed up his eyes.

‘Marcus, did you try to get Rain to have sex with you when she didn’t want it? Is that why she stayed out all night? Did that make her run away, Marcus? It’s important for us to establish if she is missing of her own accord.’

Marcus was shaking his head with increasing urgency. ‘No, no, no, no,’ he said, getting louder and louder. ‘I didn’t! No way!’

‘I’ll ask you a different way then, Marcus,’ PC Wyndham said in a kind voice that was at odds with the question. ‘Did you sexually assault Rain Carr?’

‘Enough!’ Callum roared, striding between her and his son.

The officer leant sideways, so she could still see him. ‘As you may know, a bag containing some of Rain’s clothes has been found. There is blood on the shorts.’

Callum fought back his rage. He would never hit a woman, but right now he felt like taking a swing at this bloody cop. He forced himself to sit down.

‘Please, answer the question, Marcus.’

Marcus shook his head, almost imperceptibly. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t.’

‘How did Rain seem when you saw her the next day? Was she acting normally?’

‘She was a bit quiet. Seemed a bit upset about something. But we had a swim together. We even arranged to hang out at the beach that night. Things were cool.’ His head couldn’t have hung any lower.

PC Wyndham was thoughtful for a moment before getting up to leave. PC Holt followed her. But then she stopped, her hand on the door knob. ‘Just to let you know, Mr Rodway, Rain Carr is only fifteen, not eighteen as she’d told your son. We’ll show ourselves out.’

Callum slammed the door when they’d left, leaning back against it, cupping his hands over his face, while Marcus dropped his head onto his knees, thanking his lucky stars that he’d always been a loser when it came to girls.

---

Jason was recounting the news to Greta up at the Old Stables. ‘I secured the gates,’ he said, still red-faced from dealing with the couple of journalists at the end of the drive. ‘They were calling out questions to me. They’ve already made the link to the past, of course, hoping to get a story.’ He went on to tell Greta about the police talking to Marcus again, how Callum was in a rage at the way they were being treated.

‘Sounds like they’re picking on the poor lad a bit,’ she said, adjusting her position on the bed.

‘Claire said the police have been trying to get hold of Rain’s father. Turns out he’s gone away and no one knows where. An odd time to disappear, don’t you think?’

‘You’ve been watching too many crime shows,’ she said, holding on to her stomach. She winced from the acrobatics taking place inside her, but then her expression turned into one of pain. ‘Bloody hell, not again.’

‘Love, are you OK?’ Jason put his hands over hers. ‘What’s happening?’

Greta blew out slowly. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine. Just a few annoying contractions. That’s why I came up to lie down. It’s probably nothing.’

‘Should we go home? I don’t want you having our babies in a hospital you don’t know.’

But Greta was already shaking her head. ‘No need. I know my body. It’s just grumblings.’ She sat up straighter. ‘Tell me more about what’s been going on.’

‘Turns out Rain’s father, Peter, has been in the news recently about some scandal. Bogus expense claims, apparently. I googled it. Thirty grand or so. He probably did it to pay Maggie off.’ Jason rolled his eyes. ‘Though he’s loaded in his own right.’

Greta shifted again. The kicking was subsiding, but she was convinced that the babies had dropped down a good deal. ‘I almost want them to stay in there forever,’ she said, stroking her bump. Jason nodded, knowing exactly what she meant.

‘It’s going to be so weird having a family of our own.’ He planted a kiss on the babies. ‘I’m going to be super-protective but at the same time I want them to experience everything.’

Greta gave a pensive smile. ‘Talking of families, Jase, how do you feel about having a heart to heart with your dad?’

‘Maybe,’ he said, surprising himself. He stared out of the window, knowing that in a flash, his twins would be at school, working, married, having families of their own, growing old – and at some point along that timeline he would die. How would it feel if his kids weren’t speaking to him when that happened? The hairs on his arms stood up. It was unthinkable.

‘You might be surprised at the response you get.’

‘It’s just the unfairness of it all,’ he went on as Greta tried to conceal another mini contraction. ‘When I was at my lowest point, he rejected me.’

‘People react in different ways to a crisis.’

Jason nodded imperceptibly. ‘Claire was always the golden girl.’

‘Oh, love…’ Greta caught her breath. ‘Patrick probably felt that you weren’t in the right place to take on a property.’

‘And he still thinks that, does he? There’s another cottage on the farm that’s going to ruin. I needed something to focus on back then, and a project would have been good for me.’

‘But if you hadn’t come back to London, then you wouldn’t have met me.’

Jason smiled. ‘True. Best thing I ever did then,’ he said through a flickering smile, but he still let out a heavy sigh. ‘Claire’s place must be worth a million quid by now.’ Staying here only made him more resentful.

‘We have our own home, our own lives, Jase. We don’t need handouts.’

If Greta hadn’t leant forward, wincing again, he’d have rebutted that by saying that their decent lifestyle was all down to her, not him. ‘I want our children to know the happy father I grew up with, not the bitter and resentful man I turned him into,’ he said.

‘You didn’t turn him into anything, Jase,’ she replied, sucking in through gritted teeth. ‘But I don’t want our kids witnessing the same in you. The only way to fix this is… is for you to talk to him. And that’s only going to happen if you make the first move.’

Jason knew she was right as he stared at his phone, turning it over and over in his hands, wondering how to break the ice with his father. But first, he had something more important to take care of.