Page 70 of Carbon

“If we find details of the bike, we can start looking for it on the ANPR system.”

“What’s that?”

“Automatic Number Plate Recognition. Basically, a network of thousands of cameras that feed data on every vehicle that passes them into a central database.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t sound super enthusiastic. I figured you’d be keen to catch the man who killed your sister?”

“I am. Yes, I am.” Even to my own ears, I didn’t sound convincing. “Do you really think somebody could have...?” What did Luke call it? “Spoofed that text message?”

“We already proved it could be done.”

“I thought at first somebody might have framed Beau.”

“But now you’re not so sure?”

“DNA doesn’t lie.”

There, I’d done it. I’d voiced my biggest fear. The secrets had been eating away at me, and if I tried to hold them all in, I’d have crumbled from the inside out.

“It doesn’t lie, but you sure can use it to bend the truth.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve all been conditioned to accept it as gospel. That because DNA is at a crime scene, its owner must have been too. But it’s also easy to manipulate.”

“What do you think about the case?”

“Truthfully? There’s too much evidence. A man who’s covered his tracks as carefully as Beau did doesn’t kill a girl and then leave DNA all over her body, a message on her phone, and a knife with his freaking initials etched into the handle sticking out of her side. But then again, he’s gone on the run, which doesn’t exactly make him look innocent.”

“Back in the meeting, Nye said you went on the run once?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“W-w-what did you do?” She didn’t reply, and I feared I’d overstepped the mark. “You don’t have to answer. I’m sorry if—”

“I got accused of killing my husband.”

Her husband died? “I’m so sorry.”

“Shit happens.” She stared straight ahead, eyes fixed on the tarmac zipping past under the wheels.

“It happened to me too,” I said softly. “Only I got put in prison.”

Emmy glanced over at me, and my fingers gripped onto the edges of the seat, nails digging into the leather.

“That’s awful. But it was a mistake, right?”

“Of course it was a mistake!”

“Sorry. Just had to check.”

“It happened on our honeymoon. We were in Thailand, and he’d spent weeks planning our itinerary. The first day, we...well, we stayed in the hotel.” My only sexual experience before Midnight. “We spent the second day on the beach, and on the third day, we travelled inland to visit some temples. There was this one up on top of a hill, and Rupert wanted to get a photo of me next to it, so he backed up a bit, and I told him to stop, but he fell right off the edge of the terrace.”

A tear rolled down my cheek as the memories of that terrible afternoon flooded through my mind. The way he’d told me to smile as I rushed forwards to grab him, how I’d clutched at empty air as he lost his footing.

“Then some bloody goat herder standing about half a mile away told the police I pushed him.”

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