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smooth.
    “That’s very kind of you,” said Emma. “I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”
    “No need,” I said. “What’s 80p?”
    She laughed. A sound like the singing of an angel.
    “You going to stand there talking all day now?” grunted the dinner lady.
    Emma moved aside. Her focus was still on me. “Well, thank you. I had a bit of a late night, and forgot my card. I should carry more change. Sorry, I don’t know your name.”
    “I’m Sam,” I said. “Sam Hunter.” Bond, James Bond.
    “Nice to meet you, Sam-Sam Hunter. See you around.”
    “See you,” I smiled.
    Ding!
    I didn’t dare look back. Liam scurried up to me outside the canteen.
    “That was cool,” he declared. “She was totally flirting with you!”
    “What? Really?”
    “She was doing the curling her hair with her finger thing,” spluttered Liam.
    “Was she?” I said, frowning.
    “I can see you’re a hit with the lay-deez,” he went on, jabbing me in the ribs.
    “Actually, no, never,” I said, feeling a little unsteady. “But I was cool, wasn’t I?”
    “You were. You were.”
    I took a deep breath. This had to be the weirdest day of my life.
    “Where does she live?” I asked.
    “Emma? Oh, just down the road,” said Liam. “There’s a little cul de sac called Priory Mews. Shelives in this whacking great mansion – her family is loaded. Bierce Priory, that’s the place.”
    I told him my new address.
    “You,” said Liam slowly. “Live. Next door. To Emma Greenhill?”
    “Apparently.”

Chapter Three
    I had separate lessons to Liam after lunch. The afternoon seemed to go by in a blur. English with Miss Marlo was OK, but the group I was in for politics were nothing but braying snobs. I kept myself to myself.
    When the bell went for the end of the school day, I felt an immense sense of relief. It was only then that I realized how tense I’d been.
    The school gradually exhaled its pupils. Jo waved as she sped ahead of me on her bike and, coming back out on to Maybrick Road, Liam caught up with me.
    “Do you think the police are still down there?” he asked, nodding towards the path across the road.
    I could see where this was going. “Probably not. I expect they’ve got everything they need and gone.”
    “Show me the spot, then,” said Liam.
    I sighed wearily. “Do I have to?”
    “Yeeeah, go on, I’m interested.”
    “You’re sick.”
    “Come on, they’ll have cleaned up all the blood. I just want to see where it happened.”
    I shrugged and followed him. The sky was glowering overhead, with heavy clouds drifting slowly and darkly over the town, the daylight already fading.
    I was wrong. The police were still tramping around in white coveralls. A plastic tent had been put up over the crime scene. I got the impression that they were close to leaving, however, because equipment was being packed into black zip-up bags. A large police van was parked where the car had been that morning. We turned round and went back the way we’d come.
    “Not my day, is it,” grumbled Liam. “Oh well, see you tomorrow.”
    He trudged off in the opposite direction to me, his tall, angular figure loping along. He lived at the far end of Maybrick Road, close to the point where the River Arvan ran under the stone road bridge we’d driven over on our drive around town the day before.
    I kept an eye out for Emma all the way home,but didn’t see her. I guessed she was staying late at school, doing something extra-curricular.
    As I walked into Priory Mews, I could see Mum and Dad chatting with the neighbours. The ones from Nos. 1 and 2, that is, not Emma Greenhill. There was the old couple I’d seen Dad talking to the day before, and a much younger couple, with a wriggling toddler in the man’s arms.
    A delivery van was parked outside our house. A tightly shrinkwrapped washing machine was being unloaded on to a battered trolley by the driver.
    Mum spotted me as she signed for it. “Hello – good day at the new school?” she