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‘Simple.’
    Patrick suppressed a laugh, seeing the daggers Carmella was shooting towards Wendy.
    ‘Yes, well, let’s not jump to any conclusions, eh?’
    Wendy shrugged again. ‘All right. But I bet’cha that’s what it was.’
    As Patrick was about to start talking again, the door opened and Detective Chief Inspector Suzanne Laughland, Patrick’s boss, slipped through.
    ‘Pretend I’m not here,’ she mouthed.
    What with Wendy’s interruption and now Suzanne’s appearance, Patrick had lost the thread of what he wanted to say. He turned back to the whiteboard. He could feel Suzanne’s eyes on his back and all of a sudden felt hot, sweat breaking out beneath his white shirt.
    He turned back around, trying not to be distracted by the sight of Suzanne tucking a strand of long blonde hair behind her ear.
    ‘The other thing to note about Rose Sharp is that she was a massive fan of OnTarget.’
    ‘Ooh, I love them,’ said Wendy.
    ‘Manufactured shit,’ muttered Martin.
    ‘All right,’ Patrick said. ‘This isn’t the time for a Culture Show debate about the merits of boy bands. I don’t think you’re the target audience, anyway, Martin.’
    ‘The On Target audience!’ Wendy almost shouted, laughing at her own joke and looking around in the hope that the others would join in.
    Give me strength , thought Patrick.
    ‘The point is,’ he said, embarrassed at this display in front of Suzanne, ‘Rose was a fan. According to her mum, she was obsessed. She spent all her money on them, most of her time chatting about them online . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Talked about little else, apparently . OnTarget were her life. This fact is going to give the media an angle, make them more interested than they might have been otherwise. We need to be aware of that.’
    ‘They’re playing tonight,’ Wendy piped up.
    ‘OnTarget?’
    ‘Yeah. At Twickenham Stadium. I was thinking about going but couldn’t find anyone to come with me.’
    ‘What a surprise,’ Carmella said, eliciting laughter from everyone else. Wendy, though, looked hurt and Patrick felt sorry for her. It was unusual for Carmella to be bitchy, so he wondered what about Wendy had antagonised her.
    ‘Maybe I should go,’ Patrick said, enjoying the shocked expressions on the faces of his colleagues.
    ‘I thought you were more of a Cure fan?’ Carmella said.
    Out of the corner of his eye, Patrick could see that Suzanne’s lip was twitching.
    ‘I am. But if Rose was a prominent member of the OnTarget community, this could be a good chance to meet some of them.’ He pointed at Carmella.
    ‘Oh no, please . . .’
    ‘And you can come too.’

Chapter 5
Day 2 – Jess and Chloe
    O h my God, that was just so amazing, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that incredible? Did you see the way Shawn winked at me? I’m on such a high right now. He winked right at me, it was definitely me, wasn’t it, do you think he recognised me from my profile picture?’
    ‘Oh shut up, how thick are you, Jess? He’s got fucking fifteen million Twitter followers; do you really think he’d recognise you from the stage forty feet away? . . . So where do we go, then, for this vigil thing?’
    The two girls exited the stadium, borne along on a wave of identical over-excited girls in OnTarget merchandise, with identical long ironed hair limp with sweat, most with mascara running down their hot red faces. Chloe consulted her phone, where she had saved a screenshot of the directions that had been posted on Twitter. Jess couldn’t stand still. She was jumping from foot to foot, bursting with adrenalin from the gig.
    ‘What happens at a vigil anyway? We don’t have to, like, say prayers or anything, do we? Or sing? I’m not singing.’
    ‘It’s not church, Jess, so I doubt it. But I don’t know either. We’ll just have to see, won’t we?’
    ‘Wonder who’ll be there?’
    Chloe pointed in the direction of the hot dog concession. ‘Dunno. Loads of people from the forum, I