The team were sat along the thick concrete walls of the sports hall waiting for their turns at answering the questions by the police. Denise came back first and let out a dramatic sigh of relief. 

"How was it?" Quentin asked, pulling himself up from the floor to meet her. Rosie felt a light nudge in her side from Nate. The two of them glanced at each other and smirked; everyone could see through Quentin's act and they all knew about the crush that he had on their captain. It was hard to believe at this point that Denise didn't know about it too.

"It's not that bad once you get over the fact that you're literally being questioned by the police." Denise replied, sliding down the wall next to Stephanie and Madison.

"I'll go next." Aidan declared as he climbed to his feet, giving Gabriel's legs a friendly kick as he passed. Max rose after Aidan left, stretching his long arms over his head and then grabbing his stick.

"Fuck this," he grumbled. He yanked his gloves out of his shorts and put them on, pointing at Gabriel intensely. "Come on, let's actually spend our time doing something worthwhile instead of waiting around for absolutely fuck-all."

Gabriel thought it best not to ignore him so he followed Max up. "Shut up, Max. It might not mean anything to you but Alfie was part of this team," snapped Denise. She wouldn't tolerate anyone acting the way that Max was right now.

"Oh please, Denise. Admit it, he rarely showed up to practice half the time and then when he did he was on a different planet entirely." Max and Gabriel sauntered to the middle of the court and began to refine their skills before Denise could reply. Instead she just shook her head, giving up. Max wasn't wrong and Denise couldn't argue with him about it. As the months went on Alfie's attendance at practices grew scarce as his family situation began to get worse. In the last few weeks before his disappearance Rosie had to beg him to play, telling him that he could use it as a distraction or to vent all his anger. It was a pointless mission.

        Juliet leaned in towards Rosie who was passing the time on Twitter. "I'll go after Aidan and tell you about the questions so that you can prepare before hand. I know that it must be tough for you, talking about Alfie like this." Juliet gave Rosie's shoulder a squeeze which Rosie responded with an appreciative smile. In the end, it didn't matter what the questions were, she wouldn't be able to tell them the whole truth. Rosie felt ashamed in herself. The voice inside her head was desperately attempting to tell her how risky it was to hide things from the police, to tell her that she was making the search for Alfie longer than it should be. Rosie used all of her strength to push that voice away. Alfie had given Rosie his trust; it was a valuable, precious possession that couldn't be compromised. 

"Thank you, Jules," she muttered back as Juliet made her way past Aidan to the door.

        At one point in the hour Coach Sinclair had left his tiny office down the hall to check in on the team. They were told that the police officers would return the next day to interview the people that they didn't get to. By the end of the hour and a half the police had only managed to speak to nine of the fourteen students, including Rosie. Unfortunately, and without an explanation as to why, Rosie was asked to be interviewed a second time with the rest of the team tomorrow. She put it down to another teammate slipping to the officers the fact that she used to be Alfie's girlfriend, therefore she knew more about him than she had let on. 

The day had gone dreadfully.