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Jennie gets the impression he’s trying to convince himself rather than her. He’s definitely hiding something. ‘We’ll need to have up-to-date contact details for you during the investigation, so if you’re going to be leaving the country it’s important that—’
‘I thought this was just a formality,’ Rob frowns, his tone sounding more strained. ‘I’m here as a witness, a friend of Hannah’s?’
‘That’s right,’ says Jennie, keeping her tone professional. ‘But as the investigation is ongoing, we need to be able to contact you if any further questions arise.’
‘Okay, yes, of course,’ says Rob, nodding. He shifts his weight on the plastic chair as if suddenly uncomfortable.
Jennie narrows her gaze. There’s something going on with Rob and she wants to know what. She pushes a little harder. ‘Do you have an address in Dubai we can make a note of? Or your new employer’s details perhaps?’
‘That’s not really … I don’t.’ Rob stops himself. His composure slipping. ‘Look, the contact details you’ve got at the moment are the best ones. The Dubai job, it’s been put on pause, just temporarily, while a few things are cleared up.’
‘Is that usual?’ asks Jennie, her tone kind, encouraging.
‘Not really,’ says Rob, shaking his head. ‘But … look, you may as well know this, there’s been a malpractice claim that I’m caught up in. It’s nonsense, obviously, and I’ll be able to clear my name in no time and then everything will be fine and I’ll go out to Dubai and take up the new position.’ His voice is becoming more animated, but his smile is unconvincing, the worried set of his brow and folded arms telling a different story to his words. ‘It’s all a silly misunderstanding.’
Jennie nods along. Rob’s clearly agitated about the situation, but having discovered the details, she wants to move the conversation on. ‘I’d like to turn your attention back to 1994 and Hannah Jennings. How would you describe your relationship with Hannah?’
Rob smiles and this time it looks genuine. ‘Hannah? Well, she was like the twin sister I never had. We were the wild ones of our friendship group, kindred spirits. We both thrived on attention and adventure, daring each other to do more, to be more. She was an amazing girl.’
‘Was there ever anything romantic between you?’ asks Martin, just as Jennie had prepped him to before they’d gone into the interview.
‘God no, that would have been a disaster. We were too alike for that, but we made great wingmen for each other.’ Rob pauses. He smiles, as if remembering back to when he was with Hannah. ‘She was attractive. I knew that, obviously. I wasn’t immune to her charm, but I knew it’d be a bad idea. And anyway, Simon would’ve freaked out. He was such a bloody control freak.’
‘Did you do drugs together?’ asks Martin, ignoring the obvious follow-up question about Simon’s jealousy in order to stick to the prearranged questions. ‘You and Hannah?’
Jennie makes a mental note to ask more about Simon later.
Rob waves the question away. ‘We smoked weed from time to time, but then we all did back then, didn’t we?’
‘Just weed?’ asks Jennie.
Rob’s eyes widen. He knows that Jennie never smoked more than weed with them. ‘Sometimes Hannah and I might have experimented.’
‘Might have?’ Jennie asks.
Rob fidgets in his seat. ‘It was a long time ago so …’
‘Think back,’ says Jennie, her tone encouraging.
Rob’s expression tells her he’s at a loss as to how the information on drugs he took could be important. ‘We tried a few other things, just the two of us. The others never really fancied it, but I’ve always been fascinated by the effects drugs have on us humans. Hannah shared my curiosity.’
‘Did you take heroin?’ asks Martin, clumsily. ‘Did Hannah?’
Rob looks startled. ‘Like I said, it was a long time ago, we experimented but in as far as to say whether we—’
‘Did you?’ asks Jennie, holding Rob’s gaze. She’s getting fed up with him dancing around the questions, not giving a straight answer.
He closes his eyes for a moment. Gives a brief nod.
Jennie doesn’t take her eyes off him. ‘Tell me what happened.’
Rob exhales hard. Opens his eyes. ‘It was just the once, okay? Hannah had this thing about wanting to chase the dragon and I, well, I was up for trying anything back then. All the pressure my parents were putting on me to get the best grades and into med school, I needed to blow off some steam. And the drugs, they helped.’
‘Okay,’ says Jennie, nodding for him to continue.
‘It was about a month before she disappeared. Late on the Saturday night we went to the darkroom, just the two of us. Hannah had sneaked the key off Simon on their date earlier in the evening and after saying goodnight to him she’d gone to the school. She was waiting to let me in through the external basement door when I arrived. I could tell she’d had a drink, but she didn’t tell me about the other stuff she’d taken until after we’d smoked the heroin.’ He takes a breath and wipes the sheen of sweat from his upper lip. ‘Things went wrong really fast. She had a bad trip, a bad reaction to something or the cocktail of stuff she’d taken didn’t mix well, and she started convulsing, vomiting. Then, next thing I know, she’d passed out, and whatever I did I couldn’t bring her round. I panicked. Didn’t know what to do. So I grabbed her and rushed to A&E.’
‘Who knew about this?’
