Killing Zebra Horses

By Caroline Overfield

A murder of a local, beautiful and popular girl, lzzy Johnson, shakes the town. Her death leaves many unanswered questions…

 Why did she storm out of school on that cold February day?

Why did someone brutally strangle her just moments later? 

Everything points to a killer she knows all too well. In a small town where everyone knows everyone, does this mean a murderer has been living right under their noses?

But sometimes the truth is complicated. Sometimes when we hear hooves we need to think of zebras not horses…

DI Alison Dobson is called in to investigate. She has escaped her own troubled past and settled in the small market town where she hoped to find peace. Instead, she discovers secrets, jealousies and grudges held through generations. More than one person had reason to wish Izzy Johnson dead and more than one person had an opportunity to kill her.

She must look beyond the ordinary motives and the usual suspects and recognise that the reason for Izzy’s death lay within the extraordinary nature of the girl herself. 

The hunt for the truth leads to a witness in danger, a suspect who becomes a victim and DI Dobson herself battling for her life.

Can she get to the truth of Izzy’s cold blooded murder?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Nov 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781803138145

Caroline Overfield

Caroline Overfield lives in a tiny hamlet in North Yorkshire with her husband, two daughters and three cats. She works in a local school helping children with special educational needs. Caroline’s life is so lovely and peaceful that she writes murder stories to keep herself entertained.

Book preview

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

One

It was a sunny day that held different things for each of them: birdsong, chocolate, conflict and death.

Alison Dobson was fiercely aware of her own happiness as she walked along the riverbank. The cold of a long winter seemed to be lifting and she revelled in the feeling of the sun on her face and the mud beneath her boots. She loved the peace of this walk into town. The dappled light and the cheerful birdsong made her feel more alive, more fully awake. This was her life. She marvelled at that fact. This was her life and she was in awe, constantly, of how simple it was and how happy it made her. When she thought of how it could have been she shivered. She woke in the night sometimes convinced that her life had followed the path she had been born to. But instead she was here. Walking along a riverside path in a quiet market town. Meeting friends for coffee, almost like an ordinary mum. Almost like a normal person.

Something caught her eye up on the Beamsleigh Hill, a movement that was gone before she fully registered it. She held up her hand to shield her face from the sun. Nothing to see – probably a dog or a pheasant. She smiled to herself, nothing to fear. Not here, not now. Not in this life she had so unexpectedly made for herself.

- - -

The man on the hill thought of her as prey. An animal to be culled. She was in his way and she needed to be removed. This was his chance to act, his perfect opportunity. His mother had always taught him that you should take opportunities when they came your way. He felt his pulse racing. He could have called it fear; he chose to call it excitement.

- - -

Izzy Johnson felt her heart pounding. Anger coursed through her. She replayed the argument again in her mind. Mr Riordan had been in the wrong. She shouldn’t have sworn at a teacher, she knew that… but he had treated her like a child. Worse, he’d treated her like an idiot. Asking her to stay for extra lessons. After everything. It was an insult. He knew she didn’t need extra lessons. She had thought they were… something. Not friends exactly, but something. She had thought they got on. She had thought he respected her.

Evidently not. She wasn’t going to stay for any extra bloody lessons and she had told him so. She couldn’t believe it when he told her to see him after class. The way he had said it, all calm and bossy like any other teacher. Like she was any other student. See me after class. He’d never talked to her like that. That wasn’t how they were with each other.

‘I don’t see the point,’ she had said. And he had lost it. Shouting at her like she was a naughty child.

‘I am a teacher and you need to show me some respect no matter how clever you think you are. Now sit down and see me after class.’

‘Fuck you.’ The words had exploded out of her. ‘Fuck you.’

She rarely swore. She certainly never swore at her teachers. She never ran out of class either. But here she was leaving the school. It felt dangerous. Rebellious. Exhilarating.

- - -

For the man on the hill the sight of her seemed too good to be true. An opportunity just waiting to be taken. Maybe this wasn’t the perfect place, but now might be the perfect time. He could follow. He could watch. And if the moment was right, strike. Strike while the iron’s hot. One of his mother’s favourite phrases. One of many. Along with ‘useless’, ‘stupid’, ‘undeserving’. She told him he could have been so much more than he was. She told him he never made the most of things. He never followed through. Well, he would certainly follow through with this.

- - -

Andrea Mills jogged out of her house and up Forest Hill. She took Beamsleigh Park Road and turned onto the footpath around Beamsleigh Hill. There was a little play park in front of the ancient Roman fort, but Andrea turned left to take the more deserted route. She didn’t want to meet anyone today. Her mind was on her daughter and her latest petty misdemeanour. Smoking. When had Mary started smoking? And had she really told Mr Banks at the school that it was her human right to do so? Surely he was exaggerating when he said she might be suspended if she was caught again.

Banks was a hypocrite. As if he cared about anyone smoking. Still, Andrea would have to speak to Mary. She was a good girl really, whatever Banks said, and Andrea didn’t like the idea of her smoking.

She paused where the path split and leaned against one of the two stiles. She was panting hard already. She checked that no one could see her before retrieving a chocolate bar from her pocket and taking a quick bite. She had read somewhere that sugar helped you run further. Something called glycogen apparently. You had to keep up your levels in order to run efficiently. So really the chocolate was all part of her training. Still, she didn’t want anyone to see her eating a Mars bar in her running gear. It might look odd. People were always so quick to judge.

She looked at her watch.

Dom had said he’d be back for tea, but who knew what time that was anymore. Now he was at uni her son seemed to keep very different hours to the rest of them. And Dave was at work so it would be six at least before she saw him. Mary had Art Club on Tuesday nights. She’d be back around four thirty. That gave Andrea plenty of time to finish her run, get herself cleaned up and have a snack ready for Mary.

She liked to be home for Mary getting in from school. She was still her little girl, despite the angry outbursts and the increasingly frequent calls from the school. And the smoking.

Andrea took a bigger bite of chocolate to push the thought away.

- - -

He was watching her. Waiting for his moment. Could it really be this easy? Could he take advantage of her trust so effortlessly? It felt almost ludicrously simple. But then maybe everything was simple if you were determined enough. If you showed that you were strong, maybe the world was yours for the taking. Maybe failure was just weakness or an unwillingness to do what it took. He was never going to be weak again.

- - -

Izzy took out her phone as she exited the school. She knew Robbie would come and he was the only person she wanted to see.

‘Riordan’s being an arse… I know… He wouldn’t talk to me. Acted like nothing happened. Told me to sit down like I was a bloody kid… Yeah, fuck him. Can we meet…? Now. I’m ditching school… OK… Yeah. I’ll see you up there in a couple of minutes.’

She began to run.

‘Izzy.’

She heard the voice behind her and turned to look, expecting Mr Riordan. Hoping for Mr Riordan. If he spoke to her properly she could forgive him; she could apologise for being rude. It would go back to being the way it had been.

It wasn’t Riordan. It was Mr Banks, her English teacher. She ignored him and kept on running. She ran down the steps, around the back of the bike park and out of the school grounds, heading towards the path up onto Beamsleigh Hill.

- - -

Alison was enjoying the weak afternoon sunshine. She was paying little attention to her surroundings. It was a rare moment of relaxed vigilance. She never usually let herself forget where she was, who she was, what she was doing. But today, lulled by the peace and the sunshine and the normality of life, she was walking blindly, seeing nothing. It would be good to meet up with her friends, good to catch up and to forget about work for a while. Ignoring everything but the sunshine on her face was a real luxury. She knew better than to let her guard down, but sometimes it felt good to feel safe.

- - -

He saw the wire on the ground. An old rabbit trap or some discarded fencing, he wasn’t sure which. He had planned to use the knife he had with him, but wouldn’t this be better? Untraceable. It was luck. Fate maybe. He smiled to himself. Luck was on his side, the way luck always favoured the brave. He was in the shadows, unseen. He could wait. It would just take patience. A little patience and the moment would be his.

- - -

Andrea stuffed the remains of the chocolate bar back into her pocket, realising with a jolt that it was almost gone. She began to jog again. She wondered if she might see Henry today with his little dog. She hadn’t seen him all week. Andrea didn’t ordinarily like small dogs, but somehow the little dog suited Henry. She supposed it was a gay thing. Gay men were supposed to have those fashionable little dogs, weren’t they? Was that prejudiced? How could it be when she liked Henry and his little dog so much?

- - -

Izzy was alone on the hill. Her heart was fluttering with anger and excitement and hope. She thought of Robbie and smiled. Her boyfriend. Her secret boyfriend. There was a certain thrill to that. Of course they argued sometimes, that was normal. That was passion. She didn’t want vanilla, ordinary, sensible, dull. She wanted sparks. She pushed his buttons. She knew that. But you had to break up to make up. And the making up was so much fun. It had been a shitty morning, but she was young and happy to be alive. The sun was shining and soon everything was going to be OK. Really soon.

- - -

This was the moment. He must act now. She looked over when he called her name. No fear in her eyes. It was quicker than he had expected. Easier. He hit her, she fell. Then the wire was around her neck. She fought, but he was stronger. His will was stronger. He smiled to himself. His mother couldn’t say he hadn’t followed through, she couldn’t say he hadn’t fulfilled his potential today. His mother had been right all these years, he saw that now. He could do anything when he put his mind to it.

He nudged his prey with his toe. She didn’t move. Cadaverous. He liked the feel of the word in his mouth. As he turned to go he thought of the last message he had sent her. She had replied with a smiley face, as if he were a child in need of encouragement. She had underestimated him as so many people did. She had no idea who he really was.

Meeting death with a smiley face. It felt both innocent and puerile. He was glad she was gone.

He glanced indifferently at the body on the ground. A carcass now. Blonde hair pastel-tinted with her own blood. Her throat a jagged open wound. A few more precautions, then he turned and left. He forced himself not to run. Breathing deeply, calming himself. He was just a man out for a walk. Just a man but so much more. There were no obstacles in his way anymore.

- - -

Andrea looked up from her plodding to see a man in a hoody in the distance. She plastered a smile onto her face in expectation of a meeting, but the man vaulted a low fence before he was close enough to be recognised. He cut across the grass, probably heading to the Cawpers estate or the back way to the school, and Andrea continued her laborious jog up the hill, forgetting him instantly.

Suddenly she stopped, looking at the simple scene in front of her but unable to take it in.

Her brain seemed to take a full minute to catch up with her eyes. There was someone in front of her lying on the grass like a sunbather. Except it was February. And it was cold. And the young woman she was looking at was not sunbathing. She was motionless on her back, her throat had been slashed and blood had pooled on and around her face, matting her blonde hair to her skull. Dead, undoubtedly and irredeemably dead.

Andrea’s brain was numb. Nothing made sense. She knew she should react; she had seen films and knew she should scream, or sob, or throw up. But no reaction came. There was just numbness.

Eventually, she sank to the ground beside the body and reached out a hand to touch the young woman, as though to comfort her. But at the last moment, she drew her hand back unable to make the contact. Lifeless. There was no comfort to give or receive now because the girl was lifeless. The word was echoing in Andrea’s head as she took out her phone. No signal.

- - -

Alison was in the café with her friends when her phone rang.

‘Do not answer it,’ Carla ordered.

‘It might be the school.’

‘It will not be the school. It will be bloody work and we haven’t seen you in bloody ages… and she’s answering the phone.’

Alison shrugged an apology as she looked at the display. It was indeed work.

‘DI Dobson,’ she said quietly.

- - -

Andrea sat in the back of the ambulance she had called, shivering. Trying to forget the image of bloodstained hair, white face and staring, unseeing eyes.

- - -

Alison stepped away from her friends and took a call from her sergeant. A body found on Beamsleigh Hill. A body less than half a mile away.

- - -

Izzy Johnson lay cold, unknowing. No longer fully human, just a body now. A case.

Two

Alison left her friends and walked back up to Beamsleigh Hill. The day was no longer full of hope and sunshine and safety. The walk took her within fifty yards of her children’s primary school. Too close.

A body on Beamsleigh Hill just didn’t seem real. This was her town. Her place of security. Maybe it would turn out to be an accident or even a suicide. Those things happened, even in a quiet little town. ‘Tragic accident,’ the headlines always said, as if some accidental deaths might not be tragic. ‘Devastating suicide.’ Again the superfluous adjective.

As she reached the hill Paul Skinner approached. Her sergeant was as eager as ever and she felt a familiar mixture of annoyance and sadness as she waited for him. He so wanted to please her, she had to fight the urge it gave her to be cruel.

She liked Paul. She had begun to respect him over the year they had worked together. She should have known better. Alison was not good with people. More specifically she was not good with men. She always somehow managed to fuck it up. Admittedly this had been a new and spectacular fuck-up, even by her standards, but there was always a pattern to her behaviour. She made friends, she let people get so close but no closer. She hadn’t quite realised how close she had let Paul get until recently. And then Harrogate had happened. Bloody Harrogate. What a right royal mess that had been. Paul, of course, wanted to talk about it. Like the puppy he was, he wanted to make it better. Alison was not really the talking kind. Luckily the job would take all their focus for a while.

‘OK, what’ve we got?’ she asked, barely looking at Paul.

‘Young woman. Teenager, we think. Found by a jogger about half an hour ago. She’d been hit pretty hard in the face, probably with a rock, and there’s a contemporaneous blow to the back of her head.’

Alison felt her eyebrows go up. ‘Contemporaneous!’

‘It’s a real word,’ Paul said. ‘Means it happened at the same time.’

‘Yeah, I know. You could have just said, it happened at the same time.’

‘Contemporaneous is quicker.’

‘Just make sure you spell check it before it goes in the report.’

Paul smiled.

‘You sure she was hit with something?’ Alison went on. ‘Could she have been punched in the face and hit her head on the way down? Could she even have fallen? We sure this wasn’t an accident?’

‘No way.’

‘Yeah,’ Alison agreed. ‘Pretty hard to fall and hit your face and the back of your head at the same time.’

‘It’s not that, boss. I forgot to mention…’

‘What?’

‘She was strangled, or garrotted, I suppose. Looks like it was maybe twine or thin wire. It cut into her throat pretty badly.’

‘Kind of an important piece of information that,’ Alison said sardonically.

He shook his head. ‘I got distracted. After I said contemporaneous blow, I could see you thinking what a wanker, and I just sort of lost track of my thoughts.’

Alison smiled despite herself. He sometimes seemed so young to her, so fresh and tongue-tied. She tried not to find it endearing.

‘OK, so she was hit in the face and she was garrotted. Any ID?’

‘She’s got a bag with her. Schoolbooks and stuff say Isabella Johnson. Her purse is still in the bag but no driver’s licence or picture ID but she’s probably too young for that stuff.’

‘Mobile?’

‘Not with the body or in her bag. We’re searching the area but nothing so far.’

‘Killer probably took it. It’s unlikely a teenage girl wouldn’t have one.’

Paul nodded.

‘Alright. Anything else? Soco found anything yet?’

‘Early days. No sign of a weapon yet. No clear footprints.’

‘Right. So what have we got? She was hit in the face, probably with a rock or other weapon, but we can’t rule out a punch. She was also hit at the back of the head, around the same time. Again she may have been hit with a weapon or bashed her head as she fell. And she was strangled with something thin, probably a wire. So much so that her throat was cut. Yes?’

Paul nodded at the summary.

‘Any sign of sexual assault. Was she clothed?’ Alison went on.

‘Looks like there might have been some sexual activity, but no obvious signs of force. Her clothes were in disarray but…’

‘Shit,’ Alison interrupted him, pulling her phone out of her bag.

The word disarray had dislodged something in her brain. Mabel leaving the house that morning, her school shirt untucked, one sock up and one down, looking like she had slept in her clothes. Nick laughing, calling her the ‘picture of disarray’.

Alison turned her back on Paul as she spoke into her phone.

‘Carla, hi… could you possibly…’

‘Get Beatrice and Mabel from school?’ Carla interrupted, laughing. ‘Already organised. And Nick’s going to pick them up from me about half five. I told him you got called into work.’

‘You are an angel.’

‘Gold plated.’

‘A gold-plated angel. Thanks.’

Alison turned back to Paul, cutting him off before he could ask about her kids. That was not a conversation she wanted to be having with him.

‘OK, where were we? No signs of sexual assault?’

He took the hint. Her family were off limits.

‘Nothing obvious, like I said, but we’ll do the usual checks. Only other interesting thing is the note.’

‘Note?’

If there was a suicide note after all this she was seriously going to lose it. A slit throat and a suicide note? Not plausible, of course. Paul held out the note in an evidence bag for her to read. Definitely not a suicide note.

‘Any ideas who this is from?’ she asked, handing back the note.

‘None.’

She took a deep breath and thought for just a heartbeat.

‘OK, first things first. We need her out of here before the kids start getting out of school. I want a PC at the cordon just to make sure none of them come this way. Let’s see if we can get someone at the school to ID her before Liz goes and breaks the bad news to the family. Then I want to know who wrote this bloody note.’

‘What about the woman who found her?’

‘Who was it?’

Paul looked at his notebook.

‘Andrea Mills?’

Alison nodded. The name was familiar; her kids were older than Alison’s but her youngest had briefly overlapped with Alison’s eldest attending Guides. It was a small town.

‘You sent her home?’

‘Yeah, I sent young Holly to sit with her, at least until her husband gets back.’

Young Holly. Paul was only twenty-five. Alison smiled and didn’t comment.

‘She see anything, Mrs Mills?’

‘Says not.’

‘Low priority for now then. Let’s concentrate on the school and the family. Mrs Mills can wait.’

‘And home in time for tea.’ Paul smiled.

Alison smiled wearily back.

‘If only,’ she said.

She looked at the note again. She didn’t like it. It sounded rather too much like an invitation to murder.

‘Meet me as usual. I can explain everything. Please don’t tell anyone.’

Three

Penbury High looked exactly as a school should look. A bit worn, a bit anonymous, but trying hard to be cheerful. The walls were the requisite cream and green, the paint peeling in places, and there were posters everywhere and examples of students’ work. Although she had never been inside the building before it all felt very familiar to Alison. It was much like the school she had attended so many years ago.

They were ushered into the headteacher’s office by his worried-looking secretary. The man himself appeared a few minutes later, smiling but wary. Niall Riordan was pleasant looking, in his mid-thirties, tall and thin with a face that looked fitted for laughter. Alison recognised him from a presentation he had given at Bea’s primary school the previous week. Her daughter would be starting secondary school in September and Riordan had come to talk to Year 6 about the move. The presentation had been beset with problems, not least a power cut that had trapped them inside the building when the automatic doors refused to open. It could have been a drama, but Riordan had remained calm and reassuring. Alison had liked him.

He showed that same calm now as she explained what had happened and showed him pictures of the girl found on the hill. He was able to confirm that the girl was Isabella Johnson. Or she had been Isabella Johnson, before she became a case. A mystery to be solved.

Isabella Johnson. Izzy to her friends. Just turned seventeen. Model student. Gifted, talented. A lovely girl. A full and happy life in front of her. All the clichés. Dead in a ditch. Well, not quite a ditch but still another cliché. Dead at the hands of a madman? Alison hoped not. She knew from experience that madmen are the hardest to catch.

The press loved a madman, it made a compelling story. But most murders weren’t committed by madmen. Most murders were simpler, more domestic and more mundane. Alison hoped that was the case here. She hoped the murderer was someone with an ordinary motive, just some small dispute; she hoped the killer was someone that Izzy already knew. That was the most likely scenario. But the location of the attack worried Alison. It was simultaneously too public and too desolate. It didn’t seem like the place for a domestic killing. She hoped she’d know more once she’d spoken to the family.

She nodded to Paul as soon as Riordan confirmed the girl’s identity. He stepped discreetly out of the office to put in a call to PC Liz Aidan, the family liaison officer. Liz would break the news to Izzy’s parents. Alison and Paul would head there next. It was necessary and yet Alison hated it. She hated that she would give her genuine, but completely useless, condolences and at the same time she would pry mercilessly into every facet of their child’s life.

‘Would you like tea, Inspector?’ Riordan asked. ‘I think I need…’ His voice trailed off. He didn’t wait for a reply but went over to the kettle in the corner of the office and made tea for all of them. By the time he had finished Paul was back in the room.

As Riordan returned to his desk with the hot tea, Alison saw that he had shed silent tears and that his hand shook slightly. She understood the shock, but she found the tears surprising.

Would anyone at her school have shed tears over her? She doubted it. Her headteacher had only known her name because she was part of the worst family in town and nothing more. All she had wanted from school was to get out, and get out unscathed.

‘We just have a few more questions, Mr Riordan.’ Alison smiled reassuringly.

Riordan nodded. Took another sip of his tea.

‘Did you know Isabella well?’

‘She’s in my maths class.’ He paused. ‘Should I tell the children?’ he asked. ‘Call an assembly or something?’ He was looking at his watch. It was almost three thirty and Alison knew school finished at quarter to four.

‘Please don’t say anything publicly yet,’ she said. ‘We’re in the process of informing the parents. They have a right to be the first to know.’

‘The parents. Oh dear, yes, yes, of course. I’ll give you the address.’ Alison nodded. He had his secretary pull up Izzy’s records.

Alison didn’t tell him that Liz Aidan would already have the address, that she was already on the way to the house. There was some value in letting him feel useful.

‘Her mother was here just last week,’ Riordan said. ‘Parents’ evening. Glowing report for Izzy, as usual.’

‘And there weren’t any problems that you know of? Fallings-out with friends? Boyfriends? Drink or drugs?’

‘Isabella Johnson!’ He sounded as if she had been suggesting Mother Teresa was smoking weed behind the bike sheds. ‘She isn’t that sort of girl.’

Alison raised an eyebrow. Izzy was seventeen. Surely all seventeen-year-olds had some issues with friends and boyfriends and the odd drink or smoke. Didn’t they? Or had the world changed since her day?

Paul spoke.

‘Could you tell me why she wasn’t in school this afternoon? Are sixth formers allowed to leave the grounds?’

‘Yes,’ Riordan said. ‘They’re allowed off site if they don’t have any classes.’

Alison waited; something in his tone told her there was more to it.

‘But… she was supposed to be in my maths class actually.’

‘She skipped class?’

Riordan ran his fingers through his hair, exhaling deeply.

‘She… she left early. We had a disagreement. An argument, I suppose.’

‘About?’

‘It was nothing,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It was stupid. I wanted her to come to some extra revision classes. She’s got mocks coming up… only… well… she said she didn’t see the point of coming. She was rude… she’s never normally rude… and I… lost it. Told her she had to come. I shouted actually, which I never do. She stormed out.’

‘What time was that?’

‘I don’t know, maybe two-ish? I didn’t really notice. Not long before the end of period five anyway.’

‘And when does period five end?’

‘Twenty past two,’ Riordan said. ‘I had a single lesson with Year 13 and then they had a free study period. Most of them stay and use the library or the study rooms, but they’re free to go if they like. Like I say, Izzy left before the end of the lesson.’

‘And you just let her leave?’ Paul asked.

‘What could I do? She’s seventeen, she can leave if she chooses to.’ He hung his head. ‘Christ, it’s my fault.’

‘I doubt that,’ Alison said automatically.

Riordan hid his face in his hands; through the fingers Alison could see he was crying again.

‘If I’d kept her in class… If she hadn’t stormed out.’

Alison didn’t let him go down that path. What ifs could send you mad.

‘What did you do after Isabella left?’

‘I carried on teaching.’

‘You were in class all the time until we arrived?’ Alison asked.

‘Yes… no, sorry, no. I don’t have any classes period six on Tuesday. That’s two twenty to three fifteen. It’s my admin time. Then I always take a form class for personal learning at the end of the day.’

‘Personal learning?’ Alison asked.

‘Prep, we used to call it in my day.’ Riordan smiled. ‘They have half an hour to start their homework and ask any questions and it basically just rounds off the day. I had Year 7 today.’

Alison’s head was spinning, trying to work out the teacher’s whereabouts.

‘So, you were in class until twenty past two. Then here in your office, then back in class at three fifteen?’

‘Yes. Except…’ He paused again. ‘Except I let the Year 13s out a bit early. After, well, after I had words with Izzy I just, well, I needed a moment. I let them out and I went to the bathroom. Washed my face, tried to compose myself, you know?’

Alison nodded. She would have to check on the timeline carefully. Maybe that was a job for Jack Kent back at the office. He’d hate that, which was reason enough to give him the task.

If Izzy had left school just after two, like Riordan said, there hadn’t been much time between then and the time when her body was discovered. Not much time to encounter a maniac. Much more likely she was followed. Or had arranged to meet her killer.

‘Who were Izzy’s friends?’ Paul was asking, obviously following the same train of thought.

‘Everyone. Everyone loved Izzy.’

‘She must have had a best friend,’ Paul said smoothly, smiling his natural smile.

‘Yes, yes. Lucy, of course. Lucy Jacobs. They came up together in Year 7. Inseparable. Lovely girl, Lucy. Not in Izzy’s league, of course.’

Alison gave him a quizzical look and he flushed.

‘Academically I mean,’ he said, although his blush said otherwise.

Alison hadn’t really looked at the body on the hill. She had taken in the youth and the blonde hair and nothing more. Had Izzy Johnson been beautiful as well as brilliant and perfectly behaved? In a different league to the other girls in the school?

‘You say Izzy was a popular girl?’ she asked.

‘Yes. She has… sorry had… lots of friends.’ Riordan smiled. ‘I was rather jealous actually.’

Alison frowned.

‘Sorry. God, no that came out wrong. It’s just… when I was at school if you were clever you were a nerd. You were laughed at. It’s not like that for Izzy, she’s popular, I mean really very popular, despite being so very clever.’

Alison said nothing. She glanced at Paul. He