“Yes, I did.”

“And did you pass the test?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything about what happened in that box. It just totally weirded me out and so I went somewhere else in my head.”

And press her though he might, Coleridge could get nothing more out of Sally.

“I’m not holding out on you,” she protested, “I swear. I liked Kelly. I’d tell you if I knew something, but I don’t remember anything at all. I don’t even remember being there.”

“Thank you, that’ll be all for now,” Coleridge said.

As Sally was leaving she turned at the door. “One thing, though. Anything Moon tells you is a lie, all right? That woman wouldn’t know the truth if it stuck a knife in her head.” Then she left the room.

“Do you think she was trying to tell us Moon did it?” Hooper said.

“I have no idea,” Coleridge replied.

Both David and Hamish struck Coleridge as evasive. Their statements were much the same as Garry’s, Jason’s and Moon’s had been, but they seemed less frank, more guarded.

“I couldn’t tell you where Kelly was in the box,” said Hamish. “I know I was feeling up one of the girls, but to be honest I couldn’t tell you which.”

Something about his manner struck Coleridge as jarring. Later on, when discussing it with Hooper, the sergeant admitted that he had felt the same way. They had both interviewed enough liars to be able to spot the signs. The defensive body language, the folded arms and squared shoulders, the body pushed right back in the seat as if preparing for attack from any side. Hamish was probably lying, they thought, but whether it was a big lie or a little one they could not tell.

“You’re a doctor, it says here,” Coleridge observed.

“I am,” said Hamish.

“I would have thought that a doctor might have been a little more aware. After all, there were only four women in that darkness. You’d known them all for a month. Are you seriously telling me that you were groping one of them and had no idea which?”

“I was very drunk.”

“Hmmm,” said Coleridge after a long pause. “So much for doctors and their sensitive hands.”

Coleridge would have known that David was an actor without having to refer to Peeping Tom’s notes. There was something mannered about his expressions of grief; not that this meant he wasn’t sorry, but it did mean he was conscious of how he was presenting his sorrow. The pauses before he spoke were too long, the frank manly eye contact a little too frank and manly. He smoked a number of cigarettes during his interview, but since he clearly did not inhale it struck Coleridge that the cigarettes were props. He held them between his thumb and forefinger, his hand cupped around the burning end which pointed towards his palm. Not a very practical way to hold a cigarette, Coleridge thought, but it certainly gave an impression of anguish. When David wasn’t looking earnestly into Coleridge’s eyes, he was staring intently at his cupped cigarette.

“I loved Kelly. We were mates,” he said. “She was such a free and open spirit. I only wish I’d known her better. But I certainly was not aware of her in the box. To be honest, Dervla would be more my type if I’d been fishing, but I’m afraid I was too drunk and disoriented to take much interest in anyone.”

It was all so vague, so confused. Coleridge inwardly cursed these scared, bewildered young people. Or he cursed six of them, at any rate. The murderer he could only grudgingly respect. Six people had been present when the murderer left the box and also when he returned and yet they had all been too damned drunk and libidinous to notice.

Only Dervla, to whom he spoke last, was clearer in her recollection. This was of course Coleridge’s first experience of Dervla, but immediately he liked her. She seemed to be the steadiest of the bunch, intelligent but also giving the impression of being frank and open. He found himself wondering what madness had moved a nice, clever girl like her to get involved with an exercise as utterly fatuous as House Arrest in the first place. He could not understand it at all, but then Coleridge felt that he no longer understood anything very much.

Dervla alone seemed to have been relatively aware of her surroundings during those last few minutes in the sweatbox. She recalled that when the agitated girl had made her hurried exit, she herself must have been close to the flaps, for she had definitely felt the waft of cooler air. She was also quite certain that the figure she felt slide across her and exit through the flaps had most definitely been Kelly.

“I felt her breasts slide across my legs, and they were big, but not as big as Sally’s,” she said, reddening at the thought of the scene that she must be conjuring up in the minds of the detectives.

“Anything else about her?” Coleridge asked.

“Yes, she was shaking with emotion,” said Dervla. “I know that I felt a real sense of tension, almost of panic”

“So she was upset?” Coleridge asked.

“I’m trying to remember what I thought at the time,” Dervla said. “Yes, I think I thought she was upset.”

“But you don’t know why.”

“Well, a lot of strange things were happening inside that box, inspector, things that would be embarrassing enough to recall in the morning without having to relate them to police officers.”

“Strange things?” Coleridge asked. “Be specific, please.”

“I can’t see how it’s relevant.”

“This is a murder investigation, miss, and it’s not your place to decide what’s relevant.”

“Well, OK, then. I don’t know what Kelly was doing before she bolted, but I know she’d been feeling pretty wild earlier in the evening. We all had, and still were. I myself was getting close to the point of no return with Jason, or at least I think it was Jason. I hope it was Jason.” She glanced down, and her eyes rested on the little revolving cogs on the cassette tape recorder. She reddened.

“Go on,” said Coleridge.

“Well, after Kelly slid across me and went off, Jazz and I… carried on with our um… canoodling.”

Coleridge caught Hooper smiling at this choice of word and glared at him. There was nothing in his opinion remotely amusing about discussing the circumstances that led up to a girl’s being murdered.

“And that was it, really,” Dervla concluded. “Shortly after that we heard all the commotion, and Jazz went out to see what was going on and who was in the house. I remember that at that point I actually felt relieved at the interruption. It gave me a chance to collect myself and realize what I was doing, just how far I’d let myself get carried away. I was happy that something had occurred to stop the party.”

Dervla stopped herself, realizing how terrible this must sound. “Of course, I felt differently when I realized what had actually happened.”

“Of course. And you don’t know anything about what might have upset Kelly?”

“No, I don’t, but I suppose somebody must have pushed their luck a bit with her, if you know what I mean. I always thought that Kelly was a bit of a tease on top but what my mother would call a ‘nice girl’ underneath. I don’t think she’d have gone all the way in that box.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The other night Hamish followed her out into the nookie hut, but I don’t think he got anywhere… Not that I’m saying anything about Hamish, you understand.”

“Were you aware of anybody following Kelly out of the box last night?”

“No, I was not.”

“You’ve said yourself that you were situated near the entrance. You’re sure you noticed nothing?”

“As I’ve told you, I was occupied at the time. The whole business was rather a giddy affair.”

Later, Coleridge was to ponder Dervla’s choice of words and phrases: “canoodling”, “giddy affair”, as if she was talking about an innocent flirtation at a barn dance rather than an orgy.

After Dervla had completed her interview and returned to the conference room, Coleridge and Hooper discussed her evidence for some time.