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would she hide anyway?” We looked at each other, baffled.
    “It’s weird.” I sighed, and Graham nodded. There was another long pause and then I added, “Suppose Tiffany wasn’t there at all…” I talked slowly, speaking the ideas aloud as they came into my head, waiting for Graham to laugh or disagree with me but he didn’t do either. Instead he nodded again. I continued. “If she wasn’t there … then she couldn’t have been singing … and if it wasn’t her singing … well, it certainly wasn’t Jason. Was it?”
    “I don’t think so.” Graham looked at me. “As far as I can see there’s only one explanation that would fit all the facts.”
    “Which is?”
    “It was a recording.”
    “A
recording
?” I echoed.
    “It would explain the consistency of her performance,” said Graham.
    “No!” My mouth fell open as I took in what Graham was saying. “You think Tiffany’s been miming?”
    “It’s a definite possibility. It’s not uncommon for popstars to do it, especially for television appearances. Tiffany could have been miming all along.”
    “But … is that
allowed
? I thought it was supposed to be
live
. I thought that was the
point
.” I felt quite indignant.
    “Well … yes. Live theatre should be live. It would go against the Trade Descriptions Act if it wasn’t.”
    “Do you think Peregrine knows?”
    Graham shook his head. “I doubt that very much.”
    “Should we tell him?” I asked.
    “We haven’t got any proof,” Graham said flatly.
    We sat there for a bit, and then I exclaimed, “All that going from the beginning stuff! No wonder she looked so scared when Peregrine wanted her to skip to the end – it couldn’t be done with a recording, could it?”
    “Not without giving the game away.”
    “And that look up she does before she starts a song; that finger flick – she must have been giving Jason signals!” I exclaimed.
    “Well, yes. I assume he is in on it. That would account for the strangeness of the sound system. I wondered from the beginning why he was using such complicated equipment – it didn’t seem to make sense. But now it does. She’s got what looks like two mikes. But one’s a device to play the song and the other’s an amplifier to make it sound like she’s really singing. Jason must be using a remote control. It’s very clever. He’s been giving Tiffany her songs.”
    “Do you remember when we had to come back for my lunchbox and we heard that awful singing? Do you reckon that was her?”
    “It could have been.”
    “That’s probably why they said she was funny in the paper. If she was singing that badly in the school production they must have thought she meant it as a joke.”
    “But I don’t get it,” Graham said, suddenly exasperated. “How does all this fit in with the stalker? Why would Jason be helping Tiffany and then trying to kill her?”
    We couldn’t say any more to each other because the other kids had started to turn up. But later, in the dress rehearsal when we were sitting right at the back in our flower costumes, we managed to have a whispered conversation.
    “OK,” I said. “So if Tiffany’s not really singing… Do you reckon Hannah noticed?”
    “Maybe.”
    “That could be the reason for all those strange looks.”
    “Could be,” agreed Graham.
    We’d got to the bit of the song where we had to stand up and slowly twirl full circle three times, which was a tricky thing to do without getting our petals tangled so it was a while before we could say anything else. My mind was whirring furiously. We’d worked out what Tiffany and Jason were up to but that meant Jason couldn’t be the stalker. He wouldn’t be trying to kill the woman he was helping. Unless…
    My next thought chilled me to the core. When we sat back down I said, “Graham, I’m scared.”
    “Why?”
    “All this time we’ve been thinking the stalker was after Tiffany. But what if he wasn’t?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well it was