Nathan took a deep breath and a sip from a plastic cup of water that was on the table. ‘I knew him and he knew me but we were never friends.’

‘So why did he contact you?’

‘He said he was writing a book. I looked him up and he had a few things published. He reckoned he was doing okay and said he’d never looked back since giving up teaching. He said he was doing research for his new book and wanted some advice. When we’d worked together, I’d been the IT teacher, so he knew I’d know about computers and technology. It all seemed normal.’

‘What did he ask you about?’

Nathan sighed and looked at his solicitor before turning back towards Jessica. ‘He said he was feeling a bit old and out of the loop. At first it was just simple computer things. He said he was writing about someone who stalked a victim via the Internet, then kidnapped them. I thought it was a pretty odd thing to be writing about if the author didn’t know himself but I just thought I was helping. He would ask things like how to delete the history on an Internet browser. It was stupid and I think I wanted to show off, so I started telling him about proxies and how to hide your identity online and so on.’

‘You gave him that information without him asking?’

‘Yeah . . . I mean, as I said, I thought I was helping. To be honest, he didn’t seem that interested.’

‘I thought he contacted you for that information?’ Jessica was feeling slightly confused by the conflicting details.

Nathan nodded quickly. ‘Oh, he did, we would email back and forth. I’ve been thinking about it ever since I saw what he did on the news. I’m not sure he was ever curious about computers, I think that was just the start. He only really became interested when he began to ask about mobile phones.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘Nothing, I don’t really know that much. I think he thought that, because I’m good with computers, I would also be good with phones. I don’t think he realised they are completely different things. He asked me about deleting browsing history on the Internet and so on – but then a few weeks later moved on to talking about clearing a call history or message history on a phone, so no one could trace you.’

‘Did you tell him how?’

‘I don’t know how. I just said I’d read something about using those pay-as-you-go SIM cards because they can be registered in someone else’s name. I told him basic things, like clearing your messages folder and so on. I thought it was just for his book.’

Jessica believed him and felt sure Reynolds would too. ‘If he was more or less a stranger, why did you go out of your way to help him?’

Nathan leant back in his seat and looked at the ceiling, blinking quickly. ‘Look at me,’ he said, opening his palms. ‘I’m in my forties, I’m single, I live on my own and I teach in a primary school. Being a twenty-something bloke and teaching young children would make people look at you strangely. Imagine how bad it is when you’re forty-something. I thought I was helping him write a book. He said he’d give me a credit somewhere and I felt useful. I know it sounds pathetic but . . .’ The man tailed off without finishing the sentence.

Jessica let him compose himself before asking the next question. ‘What else did you tell him?’

Nathan shook his head and seemed close to tears and Jessica knew the worst was yet to come. ‘He started to talk about the plot. He asked the best way to keep information securely. I think he thought things were safer on a computer. I told him the safest way to keep information was to not store it anywhere except your head, that you should only talk about things in person. I told him that any file saved on a computer can never really be deleted without physically destroying the hard drive. I don’t think he really understood so I made it clearer. I said that, if you absolutely had to keep details of something, the best thing to do was pretend the last fifty years haven’t happened. Write it down manually, keep it somewhere safe and, when you were done with it, burn it.’

Jessica felt a tingle at the base of her spine. She thought of the list of children’s names she had found. It had been handwritten, kept somewhere unconnected to Benjamin himself and, from what Nathan was saying, would have been burned.

‘Did you ever pass on the details of any students?’ she asked, thinking of the names.

Nathan blinked and shook his head. ‘What? No. Why would I do that?’

‘He never asked you for names and addresses of children?’

‘No, never. I don’t really have access to that anyway and, even if I did, I’d never pass it on.’

Jessica nodded. She believed him again but, if her instincts were right and he was telling the truth, they still had no idea where Benjamin had got the information from.

‘Did you keep the emails?’ she asked.

Nathan rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands before stopping to stare at the table. His solicitor had been silent since re-entering the room but he leant forward and spoke. ‘My client tells me he deleted everything but is happy to do everything he possibly can to retrieve them.’

‘When did you delete them?’ Jessica asked, staring at Nathan and ignoring his solicitor. Neither of them answered, so she repeated her question, harsher the second time.

Jessica could sense a nervousness from the solicitor and there were tears in Nathan’s eyes when he looked up from the table. ‘Christmas Day,’ he said quietly.

Jessica struggled to control the anger in her voice. ‘After you’d seen on the news that we were looking for information?’

Nathan didn’t look up from the table. ‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because . . . I knew how it would look. I knew that if he hadn’t deleted everything at his end, you might find your way back to me. I wasn’t really thinking. I saw him on the news and panicked.’

‘Why should we believe you about what was in the emails?’

Nathan finally met Jessica’s eyes, pleading with her. ‘Because it’s true. Honestly, it is. I’ll help them get everything back, I’ve still got the hard drive.’ Jessica knew there was no way that would be allowed to happen. His computer would be seized and any examination would be done by their experts. As she thought that over, she realised he still hadn’t answered the one question he had been arrested for.

‘Why did Benjamin Sturgess call you?’

‘I know you won’t believe me but I’m not really sure. He hadn’t contacted me for around six weeks or so but he emailed out of the blue asking for my phone number. I gave it to him and he phoned straight away. It was the only time I talked to him since we worked at the school.’

‘What did he want?’

‘He was talking about cars. It sounded like there was someone with him and he was asking how computers in cars work. I didn’t know what he was on about but he kept saying how he’d read that modern cars were all locked by computers. I think he meant the electronics and so on but, to be honest, I wouldn’t have a clue anyway.’

‘Why didn’t he email you?’

‘I don’t know, it sounded like he was in a hurry. I assumed he was just stuck with a chapter or something.’

‘And there was someone with him?’

‘I think so. I didn’t hear a voice but I got the impression someone was telling him what to ask because he was stumbling over the words as if they were unfamiliar.’

Jessica immediately recognised the significance. Assuming Nathan was telling the truth – and she believed he was – it sounded as if Benjamin and whoever the accomplice was were trying to figure out the best way to steal a car. In the old days, a brick through a window, a screwdriver and jamming two wires together would do the trick. With modern vehicles, it was much more complex than that and pretty hard to steal a car without a key. If they had been unable to get information from their ‘computer expert’, that might well have been the point where they decided to take a different track which led to someone hooking Daisy Peters’s car keys out of her house. Jessica wasn’t overly pleased to admit it but a lot of his story not only added up – but helped fill in some of the blanks they had.