Shoulders heaving, she puffed out her cheeks and squinched her eyes closed. Then she shook her head.

‘He was tallish. Medium size. White. Brown or black short hair. That’s all I can remember.’

‘Age?’

She shrugged. ‘Couldn’t tell. He had a big coat on.’

‘What sort of coat?’

Another shrug, then another panicked glance at the door. Patrick stood up. He knew he couldn’t push her too much when she was this anxious. He also knew that, now Chelsea had revealed how much she’d seen, there was no way he could keep this from Strong and her team. He was going to be in deep shit for coming here, but right now he didn’t care.

‘OK. I don’t want to get you into trouble, so I’m going to go now. Chelsea, thank you, I can’t tell you how helpful you’re being. I’m going to need you to phone the police station in Wimbledon and ask to speak to someone called DCI Vanessa Strong. She’s heading up the investigation into Wendy’s death and this is vital information. Your nan need not know, I promise.’

‘Will I have to go to court?’

Patrick hesitated. ‘You might. But not for ages, and we can hide your identity. We have to catch this guy, Chelsea, before he does it to someone else.’

She nodded reluctantly. ‘I knew I’d have to tell someone eventually,’ she said. Now the storm was over, she seemed almost relieved.

‘It was a horrible thing to have witnessed. We can put you in touch with Victim Support, get you some counselling,’ he said, standing up to leave. He scribbled the MIT’s main number onto the back of one of his business cards and handed it to her. ‘Promise me you’ll call DCI Strong?’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I will.’

Just as they were leaving the sitting room, his eye caught the OnTarget poster again.

‘You’re a fan of OnT?’

Chelsea made a face. ‘I used to be, I guess. Not so much now.’

‘Not so keen on their latest albums?’

‘I don’t listen to their albums, never have.’

Patrick raised his eyebrows. ‘No? Why do you like them, then, because they’re . . . ?’ He had to think about whether to say ‘cute’ or ‘hot’, and it came out as a mixture of both: ‘cot’. He covered it up as best he could, but she gave a tiny smile. She was pretty when she smiled.

‘I like reading the OnT fanfic on StoryPad. I write a lot of it, but I haven’t had the nerve to put any of it on there yet.’

StoryPad. It rang a bell with Patrick – who was it at the station who had been talking about that site? It was Martin, he thought, in one of the early briefings following Rose’s murder.

A thought occurred to him, although it seemed like clutching at straws. ‘Do you ever go on the OnTarget forums?’

She opened the front door, peering swiftly out into the corridor to make sure her nan wasn’t coming. ‘Nah. Had a look, but they’re all really cliquey and bitchy. Not my scene. But I like the stories.’

‘When you had a look, I don’t suppose you came across two girls called MissTargetHeart or YOLOSWAG?’

Chelsea frowned. ‘Don’t remember them from the forums, but it kind of rings a bell . . . oh, I know! I’m sure I read a story by them. Yeah, that’s it! There was this really good story that got thousands of votes, written by them, I’m sure.’ Her face brightened at the knowledge that she was being helpful. Sweet girl, Patrick thought, feeling sorry for her again.

‘Thousands of votes?’

‘On StoryPad.’ She seemed to stop herself from adding Duh! ‘People vote for the best stories. I remember it ’cos it was written by a group of users, which is, like, quite unusual. There was MissTargetHeart, YOLOSWAG and two others, I think. I thought it was ever so good . . . but what’s that got to do with what I saw?’

Patrick did up the zip on his coat and stepped out of the flat, turning to face her. ‘I don’t know. Nothing, possibly. Or everything.’

Thanking her again, and resisting the urge to give her a kiss on her plump cheek, Patrick walked away, his head full of all the new information he had received. The two teenage murder victims had collaborated on a piece of writing. Finally, a firm link between them.

But who were the other authors of that story?

And were they in danger too?

Chapter 41

Day 13 – Kai

Kai regarded Jade, who was leaning her forehead against the industrial-sized drinks fridge in Mervyn Hammond’s kitchen to try to cool down. She looked unbelievably hot – in both senses – in the tight black skirt, white blouse and weird little frilly white thing on her head that the temp agency had made her wear for the occasion. Her hair was scraped back off her face and she had not, to her rage, been allowed to wear more than the bare minimum of make-up.

They were both taking advantage of the fact that the chef – a scary-looking tattooed geezer – had gone for a ten-minute break and Mervyn’s housekeeper, an excitable Thai woman, was AWOL too.

‘It’s not fair!’ Jade grumbled. ‘Why should that tall slag get to serve OnT’s drinks, when I want to!’

She was referring to the fact that their agency boss had reiterated, in no uncertain terms, that Jade, Kai and the other temp staff were not permitted to talk to or even look at the boys in OnT, who had their own private waitress – an incredible-looking six-foot Somalian girl with skin like milk chocolate who was gliding around them smiling serenely and discreetly, waiting on them hand and foot. Jade was only allowed to serve the lesser mortals, and Kai only allowed to collect and wash the glasses.

‘Babe, you’re in the same frickin’ room as them! Ain’t that enough? And all them other slebs – did you see him off Match of the Day in there, talking to whatserface from The One Show? It’s dead exciting!’

Jade softened, happy again. ‘Yeah, bae, you’re right, how incredible is this? We’re really here. Aren’t you proud of me for getting us the jobs? I just gave a mini-burger to Nicoletta, you know, that model that Blake’s nobbing! But I tell you what, I’m gonna fill up Shawn’s glass tonight if it kills me. I’ll do it when the dragon isn’t looking.’

She hugged herself with joy. Kai secretly hoped she would spill red wine all down fucking Shawn Barrett’s front and get kicked out. But it was kind of cool to be there, he’d thought when they arrived. Jade had been directly approached on the forum by someone saying that the agency were looking for temp staff for a ‘special event’ and there was a rumour that OnT were involved. The rumour had turned out to be true.

But he and Jade had hardly seen one another for more than a few moments since before the party started – Kai was buried in clouds of steam, constantly loading and unloading the dishwasher. Cool or not, he was teetering on the edge of a pretty bad mood, despite his enthusiastic comments, and the steam was making his acne itch and burn. He was only allowed out of the kitchen and into the party itself whenever the clean glasses ran out and he had to go and collect empties, and every time he’d been in there, Jade was beaming and blushing and totally obviously being ogled by the pervy host, Mervyn Hammond, as she filled up the guests’ glasses, sticking out her massive boobies the whole time. Hammond’s bodyguard couldn’t take his eyes off her either, Kai noticed. His heart sank in despair – the guy looked like Ross Kemp while he, Kai, had to do about nine million chin-ups before he got any noticeable muscle definition in his biceps. He’d worked hard at it, and his torso was getting there – although there was nothing he could do about the fact that he looked like a fucking Oompa Loompa from the waist down. How could he compete?

The party planner, a.k.a. the dragon, their supervisor for the evening – an anorexic old lady of at least forty-five dripping in diamonds, in a hideous long purple dress that exposed her wrinkly old cleavage and bony shoulder blades – burst into the kitchen, waving a thin arm at them. ‘Come on! Stop standing around looking gormless, it’s at least an hour until your break! You’ – she pointed at Kai – ‘get out there and collect some more glasses, there are no clean ones, and you, Jane, take the beef satay out of the oven, now!’