Like This, for Ever

were going to find him. Just as long as he was still …
    ‘Are you sure? Are you sure it’s Huck’s?’
    ‘Definitely. It has his mum’s number programmed in, his dad’s, his best mate’s. Even yours.’
    ‘I’m on my way. Has anyone talked to him yet?’
    ‘Not yet. And Gayle found a fleece sweater in the Greens’ house. In one of the drawers in the bedroom. Black, J. Crew. Just like those fibres we found on Oliver Kennedy.’
    Dana took a massive breath to clear her head and gave Anderson instructions to get the preliminaries in order: the background checks that would establish whether Green had any history with the police; details of property he owned; of relatives in and around the capital. As she climbed from one damp deck to the next she told herself that Green was a well-known sports coach. All the dead boys had played football or rugby and Green was involved with both. The boys might all have known him from football fixtures they’d taken partin. They wouldn’t know him well, but he would have been a familiar enough figure for them not to feel threatened if he approached them. And he’d lost a son of exactly the same age as the dead boys.
    Dana got back to her car, put the blue light on top and set off towards Lewisham. And when the tiny voice at the back of her head tried to remind her that she’d never believed the killer to be a man, she ignored it.

62
    ‘I HAVE NO idea how it got there,’ said Dan Green. ‘It doesn’t really matter how many times you ask me, I can’t give you a different answer.’
    ‘Your fingerprints are on it,’ Dana reminded him, which, strictly, was a moot point. A partial print had been found on the phone that appeared to be a match for Green’s right index finger. It would never hold up in court, but, so far, they hadn’t revealed how flimsy a piece of evidence it was.
    ‘I keep my keys in that pocket. It’s quite likely I touched the phone when I put them in or pulled them out. Look, my bag was on the touchline for over an hour while we were training. I didn’t have my eye on it the whole time. Anyone could have slipped something in it.’
    Green was a good-looking man, but not, Dana had noticed with interest, at all similar to Stewart Roberts. Taller, younger, more muscular, with thick, dark hair, bright enough but hardly Brain of Britain. This man was an athlete, not an academic. When she’d first entered the interview room, she’d glanced down at his feet. Even in trainers they looked larger than average. Size eleven or twelve, at a guess. Bigger than the wellington boots that had left the prints on the beaches. And that was panic rearing its head again, wasn’t it? Because something about this just didn’t feel—
    ‘Who took the register tonight?’ asked Dana.
    ‘James did,’ said Green, referring to his assistant coach. ‘I was there when he did it.’
    ‘So you knew Huck hadn’t turned up?’
    ‘I knew he hadn’t answered the register.’
    ‘You didn’t see him?’
    ‘No, I don’t remember seeing him at all tonight.’
    ‘You didn’t think to phone his mother when he didn’t show up?’
    Green sighed. ‘In hindsight, I really wish I had. But up to five kids don’t show most weeks. Usually because something unexpected has cropped up at home, or they just don’t feel up to it. I can’t chase ’em all up.’
    ‘Some of the children there tonight say they saw Huck at the beginning of the session.’
    ‘So I understand. I didn’t.’
    ‘How can a child be there one minute and not the next?’
    ‘I have no idea.’
    ‘Did you talk to him at the beginning of training?’
    ‘No, I didn’t see him.’
    ‘Did you ask him to wait for you in your car for a few minutes?’
    ‘No, I didn’t see him.’
    ‘If Huck has been in your car recently, we’ll find evidence.’
    ‘Huck has never been in my car.’
    ‘Your wife believes you go to circuit training on Tuesday and Thursday evenings after football training. That isn’t strictly true, is it?’
    ‘I used to believe my wife stayed home and did her marking on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Turns out that’s not strictly true.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    Green shrugged. He wasn’t going to be shaken easily. Time to turn up the heat a bit.
    ‘Are you referring to the fact that your wife is having an affair with Stewart Roberts?’ said Dana.
    Green exhaled loudly through his nose. ‘Is that who it is?’ He gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘I wondered why she always