‘Ash came to me with the butt of a spliff. He’d wrapped it up in a plastic glove to preserve the fingerprints.’
‘Whose fingerprints were on it?’
‘The two younger Knoll boys smoked it outside our place on the night of Millie’s party, according to Ash.’
‘What were they doing at our place?’ Jo has raised her voice.
Ian doesn’t answer. He shakes his head and frowns, both almost imperceptible movements.
‘Wrong question,’ Jo says, as if reading his mind. ‘What did Ash want you to do with the roach?’
‘He wanted me to plant it as evidence to keep Iris out of the frame,’ Ian says.
‘No way!’
Ian is silent for a few seconds. He has never told Jo about Tracey. He tells his wife everything – well, most things – and he would have told her if it had ever come up. He’d intended to tell her when they first met, but the longer he put it off, the less it seemed to matter. Or maybe the more it seemed to matter. Until he reached a point where there was no way he could bring it up anymore. Too much time had passed.
This time she misinterprets his silence. ‘Ian, you didn’t do it, did you?’
‘No, of course not.’ He doesn’t admit he went back and forth on that a bit. He has actually kept the roach. Just in case he goes back on it again. But he doesn’t think he will. He can’t plant evidence. He could lose his job. It’s a bit late now anyway. Plus, it would take a lot more than a handful of Hail Marys and Our Fathers for him to ever forgive himself if he did something like that.
He’s about to tell Jo about the shoe, but just then Millie and Iris burst in, looking for food.
‘Don’t eat too much,’ Jo warns, as Millie takes a family-sized packet of crisps out of the cupboard. ‘It’ll be dinnertime in half an hour.’
‘Are you staying for dinner, Iris?’ Ian asks. ‘You’re welcome to if you’d like.’ He catches the look Jo throws him, but pretends not to.
‘Um … better not,’ Iris says as the girls head for the door. So, she knows he’s arranged to question her.
‘You making the meal, are you?’ Jo says as soon as the girls are out of earshot.
‘Well, I’ll help if you like,’ Ian says, which earns him another look. ‘I’m a dab hand at setting the table.’
‘I mean, I know Ash is your best mate, but he can’t expect you to put your job on the line for him like that,’ says Jo, picking up the conversation more or less from where they left off.
‘Aye, I know.’
He sets the table and heads outside, ostensibly for another smoke. He feels Jo’s disapproving eyes on his back as he slopes out of the kitchen. He has to check out that shoe.
He takes his packet of Embassy out of his shirt pocket and lights up a cigarette. He smokes it right down to the butt and stubs it out before he picks up one of her trainers. The left one. It’s a size six and a half. Vans. Old Skool. Maroon or Bordeaux or deep red or something, although the colour is irrelevant. Ian turns over Iris’s trainer and looks at the sole. The shoe they’re looking for has a distinctive tread pattern. The top and bottom have a criss-cross design and the middle looks like honeycomb. Just like this one. Shit! He examines the top of the shoe, but although it’s a little dirty, there are no stains or anything like that. He replaces the trainer, lining it up next to the other one, leaving it exactly how he found it.
It’s much later, long after Iris has gone home, when he tells Jo about it. They’re getting ready for bed, although Ian doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep. Too many thoughts vying for attention in his brain. Jo has been giving out at him for being elsewhere, not listening to a word she has been saying – the usual. And it just spills out.
‘We found a footprint in the woods,’ he begins, ‘within metres of where Joshua Knoll was murdered.’
‘Go on,’ Jo says, sitting on the edge of the bed and giving him her full attention.
‘Size six and a half.’
‘Women’s?’
‘I think the shoes are unisex, but the size is more likely to suggest a woman’s foot, yeah.’ He gets straight to the point. ‘Unless I’m very much mistaken, Iris’s left shoe is a match for the print we found. We’d have to check the wear on the soles and so on, but—’
‘What do you mean, it’s a match?’
‘Same size. Same make. Same model. Vans. Old Skool. They have a particular pattern on the soles.’
‘Come with me,’ Jo says.
