‘OK, OK. I’ll help.’

He ended the call and Carmella came over, touching his upper arm. ‘Why don’t you go home, get some rest? You look like you’re about to collapse, Pat. I’ll do it.’

‘I don’t—’

‘Patrick. Boss. I insist. Go home; spend some time with Bonnie and Gill.’

As he was walking out to the car, his phone pinged. A message from Burns. That was quick.

Detective Lennon – I’ve found the messages . . . I’ll copy everything into an email for you – give me an hour. GB.

As he put the car into gear and waited for a gap in the traffic, he had another idea. It was all very well searching the Internet for answers, but perhaps they would find the truth in the real world, where he felt most comfortable. The only problem was, to seek answers in the real world he was going to have to risk his career.

Chapter 37

Day 12 – Chloe

The roar of the engines inside the small twin-propeller plane was deafening. Chloe clung on to the wooden struts lining the interior as though at any moment she could be sucked out of the gaping opening through which the wind already howled and buffeted, trying to make itself heard over the wall of sound. She closed her eyes, as the too-big jumpsuit flapped around her legs and she already felt as though all the air had been squeezed out of her chest. Why the fuck had she agreed to this? Her dad’s joking words from that morning came back to her:

‘That would be a bit ironic, wouldn’t it, love – you survive leukaemia, do a charity skydive, then peg it when your parachute doesn’t—’

‘Dad!’ Chloe and Brandon had shrieked simultaneously, as her mum looked appalled.

‘Sorry, love,’ her dad had said, kissing her loudly on the cheek. ‘It will be fine, I promise you. No-one’s ever died doing a tandem skydive. I wouldn’t have said it if they had. I wouldn’t let you do it if they had.’

‘You don’t have to go through with it, you know, darling,’ Chloe’s mum had added anxiously. All four of them had been – as family tradition decreed – squeezed together in her parents’ bed before breakfast, a heap of brightly coloured presents in front of the birthday girl. Her mum had already been in tears once, and kept hugging her. Her sixteenth birthday – a day that none of them had been sure would ever come, particularly not last year, when Chloe had been in a haze of morphine and terror, cursing her cancerous white blood cells and fully believing that she was going to die without ever even having a snog, let alone any sort of sexual experience.

‘Of course I do!’ Chloe had scoffed, although her heart was already thumping and they weren’t due to leave the house for four hours. ‘Can’t back out now; I’ve raised seventeen hundred quid!’

How the hell would she feel once she was thirteen thousand feet in the sky? She’d tried to swallow the lump of fear lodged in her chest as she ripped the wrapping paper off a small present from her aunt and uncle, barely seeing the ugly necklace before putting it to one side. She had announced months ago she would do the parachute jump on her sixteenth birthday, when she’d been exhilarated with the news that her bone marrow transplant had been a success and she was on the road to recovery.

But in hindsight, it seemed like a stupid idea. A really, really stupid idea.

‘Who’s this one from?’ She’d picked up a present that looked like a short length of piping, with no gift card attached.

Her parents had exchanged worried glances.

‘What?’

Her mother had reached for her hand. ‘We weren’t sure whether to give it to you, love. It’s from Jess. Angelica dropped it round yesterday saying that Jess bought it for you ages ago . . .’

Chloe’s eyes had immediately flooded with tears. ‘Oh my God.’

‘Shall I take it away, darling?’ Her mother had welled up again too.

Chloe’d shaken her head. Wiping her eyes, she’d ripped the paper off to reveal a cardboard tube. Popping the plastic top, she’d fished out its contents, giving a watery smile when she saw what it was.

‘OnTarget tour poster. Cool. That’s so nice of her . . . was so nice of her.’ She’d dropped it on the bed and given a sob, covering her eyes with her forearm like the child she still felt she was.

Nine days had passed since Jess’s death; six since Chloe had run away from the book signing. Looking on the OnT forums now, it was as if the murders had never happened. Everyone had moved on. And because it was too painful to think about, Chloe had – she admitted to herself with a prick of shame – tried to put it from her mind. It was the only way to cope. She needed to stop thinking about the connection between Rose and Jess (and Jade, and her) because she couldn’t bear the shame and fear. She convinced herself that there couldn’t possibly be a connection between what had happened last year and the murders. It was a crazy idea; a coincidence.

Now, in the plane, squashed together with six other terrified people plus six cool-as-cucumber instructors, Chloe was so focused on her fear of jumping that everything else felt unreal. But there was no going back now . . .

Or was there? Surely she could still say she’d changed her mind? Then Chloe thought, Jess would have done this without wimping out.

Chloe clearly wasn’t the only one suffering from nerves. The boy next to her, who looked about nineteen, was so white he was almost yellow. She’d noticed him earlier when they were all sitting on the ground going through the landing procedure, when he’d still been looking cocky. He had a wiggly line shaved into his head, snaking all around the back and up over his other ear. You couldn’t see it now because, like the rest of them, he was wearing a stupid-looking, tight-fitting helmet that looked more like a skullcap. He was kind of cute, actually – weirdly, cuter now that he looked as though he was about to either puke or pass out with fear.

She would never normally be brave enough to initiate a conversation with an older boy, but his terror suddenly reduced and compacted her own.

‘Scary, isn’t it?’ she yelled towards him, and he made a face at her.

‘To be honest, I’m shittin’ meself!’ he yelled back.

She moved closer to the boy’s ear so she didn’t have to yell so much. He smelt of sweaty fear and shower gel. ‘You doing a charity jump too?’

He nodded. ‘It’s for the Tommy D Project. It’s a foundation set up for teenagers who’ve lost a parent.’ For a moment, the boy looked about five years old.

Chloe blushed with pity and embarrassment.

‘What about you?’ asked the boy, and she felt relief combined with guilt that she didn’t actually have to enquire as to the details of his loss.

‘I’m jumping for the Anthony Nolan Trust. I got a bone marrow transplant through them that saved my life.’ Chloe thought she still couldn’t say those words without sounding somehow smug.

‘Cool,’ said the boy, vaguely, as though he hadn’t really heard.

‘I had leukaemia.’ She wasn’t sure why she was pressing the point. Perhaps because she wanted him to know that she wouldn’t jump out of a plane for any sort of trivial reason.

‘Wow. That must have been . . . pretty shit.’

She nodded. ‘It was. Apart from when Shawn Barrett came to visit me in hospital.’

‘Who?’

Surely he couldn’t be serious. ‘Shawn from OnTarget?’

‘Oh right – them. You don’t like them, do you? They’re for little kids.’

She blushed again. ‘Well.’ She could hardly believe the words she was about to say, especially as she realised that she meant them. ‘I used to be really into them. Not so much now, though.’

Jess’s face came into her head, her fervent passion for and utter loyalty to the band, and Chloe felt as though she had betrayed her. The tears that had never been far from the surface since the terrible news of Jess’s death threatened again, but luckily – if you could call it luck, thought Chloe – her instructor tapped her on the shoulder and indicated that they should start the process of being clipped together. Her companion’s instructor did the same.