He had no idea if she felt anything like this when she was with him. Sometimes he caught her gazing at him when she didn’t know he was looking, and she would turn her face away quickly. Right now she was all business: drawn with worry; a little tic beneath her right eye. He felt the urge to reach out, touch her face. But it could never happen. They could never touch. And the realisation blew through him like a cold draught, a stiff wind slamming a door shut.
He recounted the first part of what Kai Topper had told him about StoryPad.
‘Then, he said, war broke out. The person who was leaving all the negative comments on Jade and co’s story had written her own OnTarget fanfic. It was far less popular than Fresh Blood – that’s the story written by Jade, Chloe, Rose and Jess.’
‘Boy bands and vampires,’ Carmella said.
‘I see.’ Suzanne shook her head almost imperceptibly.
‘You can guess what happened next,’ Patrick went on. ‘Jade and friends started to slate this other person’s stories, leaving loads of scathing reviews, encouraging other users to join in, to laugh at her writing. This made the other person retaliate and do the same on Fresh Blood. Kai said Jade was pretty sure this “troll” was setting up loads of sock-puppet accounts, as he called them, in order to leave bad reviews. Then it got even worse. It spilled over onto the official OnTarget forum, where this other user also had an account. Everything Jade and her friends posted got slated, and they did the same back. Kai says that it was mainly Jade and Jess, that Chloe and MissTargetHeart, as he calls Rose, wanted to let it go.’
‘But they didn’t?’ Suzanne asked.
‘Far from it. According to Kai, Jade became obsessed with this troll, decided to see if she could find out their real identity. So she started trawling back through the troll’s old posts until she found one in which her nemesis had posted a link to her Tumblr account. The Tumblr account had a link to this girl’s blog—’
‘It was a girl?’ Carmella looked disappointed. ‘I was hoping—’
‘That it was our killer? No. Let me tell you the rest. The blog linked to the girl’s Facebook page. Now Jade knew her real name: Melanie Haggis. And the Facebook page and blog had photos of Melanie on them that she hadn’t protected. Our charming friend in room three says that Melanie was a “real minger”. He reckons she was in her mid-twenties, too old to be on the OnT forums or StoryPad, according to him. And Jade decided to go nuclear.’
Both women were holding their breath.
‘She set up a fake Facebook profile in Melanie Haggis’s name, filled it with all of these cruel status updates about how she’d just eaten seventeen Mars Bars and used the last one to masturbate with; stuff about fancying really “sad” people like David Cameron; some really cruel things too. Statuses saying that she’d been molested by her uncle and felt guilty because she enjoyed it. How she’d had sex with a German shepherd and was worried she was going to have babies who were half puppy. Sick shit. Jade got all these photos of morbidly obese women too and Photoshopped Melanie’s head onto them. Once she’d set this all up, she shared the link to the Facebook page on the OnTarget forum.’
Carmella gasped. ‘Oh my God.’
‘Apparently the whole forum went mental, everyone on there wading in and giving Melanie Haggis abuse. It got shared on Twitter, Tumblr, everywhere.’
He was pacing faster now, back and forth across the room.
‘At first, Melanie tried to fight back, to respond to the posts. But then she went quiet. Disappeared. Kai didn’t want to tell me the last bit, but he said that Jade sent Melanie a private message, saying she was going to send her boyfriend round to rape her, that she knew where she lived. He swears it was an idle threat, that he didn’t know about it until after Jade had sent the message. Anyway, Melanie didn’t respond.’
‘Because . . .’
Patrick could see that Carmella had guessed it.
He nodded. ‘She killed herself.’
The room was silent for a few seconds. ‘How,’ Carmella asked, ‘did Jade and Kai know she’d committed suicide?’
‘It was in the local paper, apparently. Just a small piece, following the coroner’s report. She took an overdose. According to Kai, Chloe’s nan reads the paper front to back and mentioned it to Chloe because it said she was a big OnTarget fan in the report. Chloe then told the other girls and they were mortified. Even Jade felt bad about it, according to Kai. Although it sounds like she was more worried she was going to get the blame, that people were going to find out. So she deleted the fake Facebook page and all the posts she’d written about Melanie, getting the others to do the same. Kai says the others blamed Jade and they had a massive falling-out. Chloe and Jess were “real life” friends, so they stayed mates, but Jade never communicated with the others again, except to send Kai round to Chloe’s to get back some UV nail thing she’d borrowed. They even deleted their Fresh Blood story.’
‘And now two of them are dead,’ Carmella said.
Patrick pointed at Mervyn Hammond’s list. ‘Melanie Haggis and the party. Find the connection, and we find the killer.’
Patrick left the interview room to find Martin Hale, giving him Melanie Haggis’s name and asking him to find out everything he could about her. Then he headed for the incident room, followed by Carmella and Suzanne.
He pinned Mervyn’s list to the wall, studying it again, willing a name to jump out at him. Everyone on it was being run through the database. If there was time, if Chloe and Jade weren’t currently missing, they would bring in everybody who’d been at the party, ask them if they knew Melanie, if they’d seen or heard anything. He could imagine the furore in the press if they did this, the obstacles that would be thrown into their path. It had been hard enough interviewing a single boy-band member.
He studied each of the four girls’ photographs in turn: Rose, Jess, Chloe, Jade. Gazing at them, with Topper’s story ringing in his ears, Patrick felt certain he knew the motive for the murders now. Vengeance. But who? Who had sought bloody revenge against the girls who unwittingly drove Melanie Haggis to suicide?
‘It’s Hammond.’
He turned. Winkler had entered the room, Gareth just behind him. Winkler had a look of triumph on his face.
‘What are you talking about?’ Patrick asked.
‘This Haggis girl – she used to live at St Mary’s Children’s Home. You telling me that’s a coincidence?’
‘But Mervyn was in custody all day.’
‘He must have an accomplice.’
Patrick opened his mouth to argue, then shut it. Could Winkler be right?
‘There’s more, boss,’ said Gareth. ‘Melanie Haggis’s address. She lived in Wimbledon – on the same street as Nancy Marr.’
That was the final piece of proof. The murders had to be connected to Melanie. But Mervyn? Had he fooled them? Was his list incomplete, all names present apart from Mervyn’s secret accomplice?
He snatched up his jacket and headed towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’ Winkler demanded.
‘St Mary’s.’
Patrick hammered on the door of St Mary’s Children’s Home, Carmella standing beside him. It was 9.30 p.m. and he was trying not to panic. What were the chances that Jade and Chloe were still alive? They needed to get in here and get the information they needed fast.
A middle-aged man with a grey beard opened the door and Patrick immediately flashed his badge at him and said, ‘Police. Are you the manager?’
‘I’m the deputy. The manager’s not—’
Patrick cut him off, stepping past him into the entrance hall, Carmella following. It reminded Patrick of the reception area of a clinic or, indeed, a police station: uncomfortable seating; low tables piled high with leaflets; posters on the wall offering advice or guidance. He wondered where all the kids were. As he thought this a skinny teenage girl with copper hair wandered into the room, spied Patrick and Carmella, and slipped away, vanishing like a ghost.