‘You spiked the punch?’ Pat shook his head. Stupid idiot. ‘How much did you put in it?’

Kai shrugged. ‘It was a small bottle. Big bowl, though. Are you gonna nick me?’

Tears filled his eyes again and he held out his wrists, inviting Patrick to handcuff him.

‘Nick me. Go on, I deserve it. I reckon someone got so high that he followed Jade home and has done something to her. I thought it was that Mangan bloke, but it must have been someone else . . .’ He dissolved into sobs again.

Patrick feared the interview was getting out of control. He handed Kai a tissue and the boy scrubbed at his face.

‘Kai, I don’t think that’s the case. We know that Kerry drove her home. It’s hardly likely that someone else followed them, is it? If anyone was that high, there’s no way they’d have been capable of that. I’m not going to nick you, not right now. It was a dangerous and, frankly, moronic thing to do, but we need to concentrate on finding Jade. So – let’s go back a bit. Who was it on the forums who told Jade to apply for the job?’

Kai shrugged. ‘No idea.’

Patrick sighed. It would have been too good to be true, if Kai could have given him a name.

‘OK. Let’s talk about something else. What do you know about Jade and StoryPad? Specifically a story she wrote called Fresh Blood.’

Topper went pale, sitting back in his chair. His reaction was worse than when he’d confessed to spiking the punch and Patrick suddenly had a horrible feeling that he was going to have to ratchet up the ‘Jade’s in danger’ stuff.

‘What are you asking about that for?’

‘We know that Jade was one of four co-authors of that story. Two of them are dead, Kai. The fourth, Chloe Hedges, is also missing.’

‘Chloe? What, F-U-Cancer? I only saw her the other day. She had this UV nail thing of Jade’s and I went round to get it back. She’s a nice girl.’

‘A good friend of Jade’s?’

Kai tipped his head from side to side. ‘They fell out, didn’t they? After that . . . Fresh Blood thing.’

Patrick wanted to grab Kai and shake the story out of him, wished he could lift off the top of his skull and pluck the answers out of his brain, rather than having to drag them out of him like this.

‘Tell me from the beginning, Kai.’

‘All right. Like you said, there was four of them: Jade, Chloe, MissTargetHeart and YOLOSWAG.’

‘Rose and Jess.’

‘Yeah. Jade didn’t really know them in real life, not properly. She’d met them at some OnT gigs and sort of became mates with Chloe. We went to Rose’s vigil, but I don’t think Jade ever really knew her. She wasn’t that cut up when Rose got killed, anyway.’

‘So they were mainly online friends . . .’

‘Yeah. Jade’s on the OnT forum all the time. It does my head in, to be honest. But she met the others on there and I think they started chatting about StoryPad and all the OnT fan fiction on there. Jade had written a few things, same as the others had. But Jade thought most of the stuff on there was pretty shit and suggested that they team up to write something really, like, epic.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, that’s what they did. I barely saw her for a couple of weeks because she was spending all her time, when she wasn’t at school, writing. Jade’s really imaginative. She came up with most of the story, I think. But Chloe was better at writing it down. I don’t think the other two did that much. Just wrote the odd bit here and there. Jade was always moaning about how them two didn’t contribute enough, you know?’

‘And the story became popular?’

‘Yeah, it was well popular. Thousands and thousands of hits, and loads of comments too. Most of them were, like, really gushing about how great it was, the best OnT story ever. Jade was in ever such a good mood. That was when we first, you know, did it.’ He blushed. ‘But then her mood totally changed.’

‘Why was that?’

‘Because some girl started slating it. Leaving loads and loads of negative comments, saying the story was shit, that it was a rip-off of Twilight and that the writers had got Shawn and the other OnT boys all wrong. Jade was fuming, said this girl was a jealous bitch, a troll, and that she was going to get revenge, teach her a lesson.’

He was twisting the Coke can around again, faster and faster.

‘And what happened after that, Kai?’

The boy looked up at him.

‘It was war. All-out fucking war.’

Chapter 55

Day 14 – Chloe

I think we’re going to have to go somewhere more . . . spacious,’ said the man calling himself Pete, once Chloe and Jade had stopped screaming. ‘Right old racket you two are making. My ears are ringing. Should have gagged you both. Although nobody will ever hear you out here. I’m not worried about that. I just need a bit more space for what I’ve got in mind.’

He sounded so calm, almost chatty, as though he was sitting next to them at an OnTarget gig, rather than in the dark in a spiky cold grotto. The sound of his disembodied voice so close to them made Chloe wet herself, and just for a moment the warmth of the urine soaking the crotch of her jeans was comforting. I want my mum, she thought, too frightened even to sob. I want my mum.

Jade was whimpering now from across the grotto. Chloe wished she could comfort her, and be comforted, but her hands were tied – and she was far too terrified to make any sort of move.

‘Right, let’s go, then, you silly little tarts.’ The girls heard the sound of him jumping up and clapping his hands together, like a primary school teacher trying to galvanise a crocodile of kids into action. ‘It’s getting too dark now. I won’t be able to see what I’m doing out here’ – his voice suddenly changed, deepened – ‘and that would never do, would it? What would be the fun in that?’

Jade burst out crying again. ‘Please, let us go! Why are you doing this? We haven’t done anything to you!’

There was a long pause, then the click of a cigarette lighter. A wavering flame appeared in the dark grotto, and Chloe gulped as she saw the man’s face, his eyes two black hollow circles like a skull’s. He moved towards Jade and held the flame under her chin.

‘You!’ Jade gasped, frantically shaking her head to try to escape the fire. So Jade did know him, Chloe thought. She tried to pay more attention to his appearance – he was youngish, tallish, good bone structure and long slim fingers. He did not look the type to be doing this.

‘Haven’t. Done. Anything. To. Me?’ he repeated slowly, menace dripping from his voice. ‘Well, that’s where you’ll find you’re wrong. You two, and the two other stupid little girls. You know exactly what you’ve done to me. What you did to her.’

‘We didn’t mean it!’ Jade cried. ‘How were we supposed to know—’

He thrust the lighter upwards so that the flame licked at the soft underside of Jade’s chin. Chloe shuddered and looked away as the smell of burning skin and hair filled the air, and Jade kept violently shaking her head from side to side, trying to get away but not being able to with her hands and feet tied, screaming and crying. The man held the flame steady for what seemed to Chloe like an eternity until she thought she was going to faint. Was it her turn next?

‘Stop, please stop!’ howled Jade, and finally the man moved the flame away. He crouched down and lifted the glass cover off an oil lamp on the floor of the grotto, touching the lighter to the wick, then replacing the cover. More light flickered around the grotto and Chloe took in Jade’s distraught face, screwed up in agony and panic. Even in the dim shadowy light she could see the huge blister that had formed on Jade’s chin.

The man opened his black backpack and took out a horrible curved, serrated knife.