‘I’m Cathy, by the way,’ she says, showing us to a front room while her oldest boy is sent to fetch his father. He sprints up the stairs. Moments later, the music stops.
‘Ian plays in a band at the church,’ she explains.
‘What church is that?’ I ask.
‘Trent Vineyard.’
I know the place. It’s one of those newer churches where Christianity comes with a light show and pumping rock music in a cavernous warehouse on an industrial estate in Lenton. Thousands of people show up every Sunday, praising the Lord and opening their wallets because salvation is available on a weekly payment plan – all credit cards accepted.
Ian Hendricks appears behind her, looking concerned, yet greeting us warmly.
‘I’ll take the boys to school,’ Cathy says, shooing them into the hallway where she wrestles them into coats and scarves. We can hear her talking. ‘Daddy is busy. Yes, the police . . . No, nothing is wrong.’
Hendricks smiles tiredly.
‘Do you remember us?’ asks Lenny.
‘Yes, of course. You’re DCI Parvel and . . .?’ He clicks his fingers, trying to remember me.
‘Cyrus Haven,’ I say.
‘Yes, that’s right. The psychologist.’
Lenny unbuttons her overcoat, letting it flare out as she settles into an armchair.
‘What car do you drive, Mr Hendricks?’
‘We have a Honda Odyssey – a seven-seater.’
‘Do you also own a Peugeot 207?’
‘That’s my wife’s car.’
‘Were you driving a Peugeot 207 on the night of the fireworks?’
Hendricks hesitates. ‘To be honest I can’t remember.’
‘You went to the fireworks.’
‘Yes, but we left early. Tristan had a temperature. We brought him home.’
‘But you went out again.’
Hendricks’s tongue pokes out, looking to moisten his top lip, but can’t find the spit. I can see him trying to work out how much Lenny knows.
‘I went to get fish and chips for dinner.’
‘In Southchurch Drive?’
‘Yes.’
Lenny waits.
Hendricks breaks. ‘I bumped into Jodie Sheehan. She was outside on the footpath. I offered her a lift home. There were lots of young lads roaming about. Some of them were drunk. Rowdy. I thought it wasn’t safe.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?’ asks Lenny.
Hendricks seems to gaze past us helplessly. ‘I didn’t think it was important. I mean, you’d already arrested someone, so I knew . . . I didn’t want to . . .’
‘Get involved.’
He nods, searching for understanding.
‘We hadn’t arrested Craig Farley when we spoke to you,’ says Lenny.
‘I knew it wouldn’t look good. Teachers aren’t supposed to fraternise with students outside of school.’
‘By fraternise you mean . . .?’
‘Be alone with them.’
‘But you ignored the rules.’
‘We were only talking.’
‘Alone in your car.’
‘I know it’s frowned upon, but Jodie was different. She’d come along to our church a few times.’
‘At your invitation?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
He takes a moment to collect his thoughts. ‘I knew Jodie was struggling with things. She was exhausted, what with her training, travelling and competing. She wasn’t allowed to go to parties or to have a boyfriend.’
‘She told you this?’
Hendricks nods. ‘I thought that maybe she might find some answers, if she talked to Jesus.’
‘You were trying to convert her.’
‘We don’t convert people – we embrace them.’
‘Did you embrace Jodie Sheehan?’
‘Not like that. I don’t appreciate what you’re insinuating.’
‘Did Jodie ever write notes to you?’ I ask, remembering the valentine card we discovered in her school locker.
‘No.’
‘Did she send you a valentine?’
He falls silent.
‘Did you give her one?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘I can see how these schoolgirl crushes can happen. It must have been flattering.’
‘Nothing happened!’
‘You’re young and good-looking. You’re took an interest in her. You listened.’
‘I was tutoring her.’
‘Because she fell behind?’
‘Yes.’
‘You gave her more attention in class – called on her first.’
Hendricks is shaking his head.
‘Soon you were sharing private jokes and secret smiles and stray touches. You told her she was special. You found excuses to be alone with her. If only you were ten years younger, you said.’
‘Stop it!’ the teacher whispers. ‘I’m a Christian.’
‘So was Myra Hindley,’ Lenny says, ‘and Peter Sutcliffe.’
‘I can’t help it if she had a crush on me,’ says Hendricks. ‘I gave her spiritual advice, that’s all. As God is my witness.’
‘Do you need God as a witness?’ I ask.
‘It’s a figure of speech.’
He drops his head into his hands. I can see the top of his scalp, where faint traces of dandruff cling to the parting in his hair.
‘Were you sleeping with her?’
‘Never! I wouldn’t.’ His voice has risen in pitch.
‘Did Jodie tell you she was pregnant?’
The teacher’s head snaps up and fear sparks in his eyes. ‘What? No!’
Lenny reaches into her jacket pocket and retrieves a small sealed plastic tube with a cotton bud inside. At the same time, she takes out a pair of latex gloves.
‘Have you ever heard of Locard’s Exchange Principle, Mr Hendricks?’
Hendricks shakes his head.
‘It holds that every perpetrator of a crime will leave something at the crime scene and take something away from it. It could be soil, fibres, semen, skin cells or a single strand of hair. Wherever they step, or whatever they touch, they cross-contaminate.’
Lenny unscrews the lid of the plastic container.
‘What are you doing?’ asks Hendricks.
‘Collecting a DNA sample. Science is going to put Jodie in your car. Science may also find your semen on her body and your baby in her womb.’
‘That’s crazy! I’m a happily married man. A father. I would never . . . I didn’t . . . We talked, is all. Nothing happened.’ His voice has a pathetic wheedling quality.
‘Open your mouth.’
‘No.’
‘Are you refusing to co-operate?’
‘I want a lawyer.’
Lenny sighs in disgust. ‘In my experience, conscientious teachers don’t ask for lawyers and refuse DNA tests. Conscientious teachers rarely lose their jobs – unless they’re sleeping with a student.’
Hendricks takes a moment to weigh up his choices, before allowing Lenny to swab the inside of his mouth.
His wife has returned from the school drop-off. Her toddler is rugged up in a colourful coat that makes her look like a beach ball with limbs. Outside two men in overalls are winching a rust-streaked Peugeot 207 up the sloping ramp of a truck with a police insignia on the doors.