‘At least six hours,’ Sean said. ‘His skin …’

Post-mortem hypostasis, he’d learned about it at police college, even though he could never spell it. Gav was breathing heavily in the doorway, holding out a pair of latex gloves.

‘Put these on. I’ll put the call in and get the place secure.’

Sean had been leaning forward, not daring to touch the handrail or the wall, hoping for some sign of life, which was never going to come. As he straightened up, a wave of light fluttered behind his eyes and he wanted to grab the metal banister and hold on, but the rules kicked in: don’t contaminate the scene or get any blood on your skin. He blinked to focus and looked about him. Wedging his torch between his knees, he fumbled with the gloves. Light danced across the victim’s shoes, where remnants of mud and grass were wedged in the pattern of the tread. From beyond the door, Gav’s voice was urgent on the radio, but inside nothing stirred.

It felt like a long time that he stood there, three steps below the body. He didn’t need the torch now. The light was getting stronger through the upper windows. A door banged somewhere in the block and occasionally the lift mechanism ground into action. He dared himself to go nearer, to see the wound that had produced so much blood, but as he peered over the hunched up legs, he wished he hadn’t. The man’s jeans were open at the fly and his crotch was dark with a mess of deep-red flesh.

‘Christ!’ Sean looked away.

A fire door from one of the upper landings opened and Gav put his head out.

‘I’ve taped up every door to this staircase. Thank fuck the lift works. No one here yet?’

‘No one,’ Sean said.

‘It’s all right, mate,’ Gav called down. ‘Stay where you are. I think I can hear the sweet sound of backup. I’m on my way down.’

Sean could hear it too, far away but getting nearer, several sets of sirens, out of sync, harmonising for a few seconds, then splitting again. For those last few moments before the mayhem began, Sean forced himself to look at the man’s face, trying to get a clear picture in his mind of him as a person, not just a slaughtered animal. He had Asian features, or maybe Turkish. He was slim and, although it was hard to tell, Sean guessed he was nearly six foot. He wore a thin gold chain which fell inside his T-shirt and although, the curve of his cheek was already swollen in death, Sean could see he’d been a good-looking lad.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

York

‘Has anyone seen my phone?’

The laptops are set up in the dining room for the second night of the computer course. Taheera is standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips and her face like thunder. She’s looking directly at Chloe.

‘Has anyone seen my phone?’ she says again.

‘Um, I’m Kath, from the council,’ says the teacher. ‘IT trainer? I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met.’

‘Taheera Ahmed, residential officer. My phone’s gone missing and I was wondering if anyone had seen it.’

Emma leans back in her chair, arms folded. ‘What you saying, T? That someone’s nicked it? We’ve been in here for the last hour. Haven’t we, Chlo?’

Chloe nods. She thinks about being in the car last night, tries to remember if the phone was there. She knows she didn’t pick it up.

Taheera is still staring at her. Seconds have passed.

‘I haven’t got your phone,’ she says.

She remembers Taheera texting before they got to her parents’ house, but not afterwards. There was a plate of Indian sweets, but no mobile phone. Chloe needs to tell her but they have a deal. A deal which says they can’t talk about yesterday.

‘Can I have a word,’ Chloe says, ‘in private?’

As she gets up, the other girls watch her. Perhaps they think she’s going to snitch on someone. Taheera is waiting in the hall.

‘So?’

Chloe is taken aback by her hostility, but she understands. They were not meant to get to know one another, step out of the roles they’d been assigned. Taheera has let herself be seen, shared a confidence, and now she’s closing herself in, trying to build up the wall between them again.

‘I haven’t got your phone,’ Chloe says. ‘I’m not a thief.’

‘Really? So where is it? I had it yesterday.’

‘I’ve never taken anything.’

‘How can you say that?’

It hangs between them. A life. She was convicted of taking a life. His name comes to her again. Jay. She doesn’t usually let it in, but yesterday she got so close. He’s whispering something to her now. Telling her to stick up for herself.

‘I didn’t see it after we left your mum and dad’s house. Maybe you left it there.’

‘Do you think I haven’t thought of that? I rang my mum and she’s looked everywhere. It’s not there.’

‘You can search my room if you want to.’

She turns and starts towards the stairs. Taheera doesn’t move at first, as if she’s deciding whether to give up, but then she follows.

Chloe opens her door and puts the light on. Her bed is made. Her clothes are folded in the drawers. She pulls the top one open and moves the few items of underwear to one side.

‘Look, here, look for yourself.’

Taheera shrinks back in the doorway. ‘It’s OK. I believe you.’

Chloe wants Taheera to say sorry, but she says nothing, just turns and lets the door snap shut on its spring. Chloe stands for a moment in the middle of her room and sees it as it is: bare and empty, no pictures of family on the walls, nothing to hint at a past and or a future. She feels weightless, like something untethered in zero gravity. Not zero gravity, Jay’s voice is saying, you know better than that. There is some gravity on the moon, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to stand there. They would have floated off into space for good. He’s right, she thinks. That’s not going to happen. The sound when the truck screamed past, every hair on her body raised, the feeling when Taheera slammed her against the side of the car, the knowledge that she hadn’t died, that she’d lived again; that’s what she has to hold on to. She looks at her face in the mirror on the back of the door and slaps her cheeks, hard. It hurts. It’s going to be OK. She’ll go back down to the IT class. She will listen. She might even take notes.

When she gets back, she’s missed something about Internet safety, but the teacher says she’ll fill her in later, right now she wants them all to look at the BBC weather site – it will remain hot for the next few days but some areas will receive occasional heavy showers – then the news. Chloe’s not interested in the national news. The website is the same as the TV news, but with more writing and even more boring. The tutor’s telling them how to search for local news. Chloe senses Emma watching her.

‘Type in a place, and you’ll get the local news,’ Kath from the council says. She suggests they all type in ‘York’. ‘What can you see?’

‘Town centre development unveeled,’ Emma reads out.

‘Unveiled. Good.’

Kath is oblivious to the fact that she’s embarrassed Emma by correcting her. Chloe understands now how this works. While Emma is busy digging some imaginary dirt from under her nail, Chloe types ‘Doncaster’ into the box. She waits, expecting the headline from the newspaper in the shop and her younger face staring back at her, but the picture on the screen is all greens and browns and the bright colours of racing silks: Residents’ Raceday and Family Fun Activities. She clicks on a triangle and the picture comes to life with the sound of horses’ hooves and a man’s voice rattling out the commentary. The tutor is flapping her hands.

‘Not just yet, Chloe, we’ll get on to the video content next session. Can you mute that? Can you?’

Emma leans over and grabs the mouse. The BBC news screen disappears, but in Chloe’s mind the horses are still rushing by on the track, as if she were a little girl again, holding on to her mum’s skirt, and her mum leaning into a man, both drunk, the man ruffling Chloe’s hair, calling her ‘sweetie’. The lesson is over. The tutor is saying that she’ll be back next week. She’s forgotten all about Chloe’s Internet safety.