He crosses the street without checking if the road is clear and a car has to slam on its brakes to avoid colliding with him, the honking of the horn and the volley of insults aimed in his direction fully justified. I lose and regain sight of him a number of times as I chase him through side streets and past rows of terraced houses.

His long legs propel him along the street with ease and I struggle to keep up, but as we career towards the city centre, the crowds of weekend shoppers slow his progress. Luckily, his stretched frame and wild hair are distinctive amongst the throng of people and I keep my eyes fully locked on him as he approaches the Arndale shopping centre.

Just as he reaches the doors, a large group of shoppers with bags full of Christmas presents exit, blocking the doorway. Leading with his shoulder, he barges through the group and into the shopping centre, nearly knocking two unfortunate women to the floor.

The women are still in the doorway, gesticulating angrily towards the rogue student. This delays my entry and by the time I have navigated the obstruction, Ben is out of sight. Standing in the middle of the ground floor, I gaze through shop windows trying to catch a glimpse of his bushy hair but he is nowhere to be seen.

‘Fuck,’ I mutter, bending over and resting my hands on my thighs, feeling the lactic acid settle into my tired muscles, just as an out of breath Liam appears by my side.

We spend over half an hour patrolling the shopping centre, Liam having ascended the escalators and me on the ground floor, scouring the place for our missing student, though with no sign of him, we concede defeat and trudge back through the rain towards the student accommodation.

Liam unlocks the car and, as I am about to get in, I hear someone shouting, as if to attract my attention. I look for the source of the noise and find a young man with his hood up and scarf pulled tight around his neck, waving at me from the outdoor smoking area of a pub across the road. He stubs his cigarette out in an ashtray, turns around to knock on the window of the pub and mouths something through the glass.

A minute later, the rest of the group who had accompanied Ben around the corner of the street a little over an hour earlier emerge. One of the girls sucks the rest of her brightly coloured drink through a straw and sets the empty glass on one of the tables. They make their way sheepishly across the road towards us.

‘We want to know if we can help,’ says one of the girls, before inviting us into their halls of residence.

We ascend the stairs again, thankfully only to the fourth floor, and enter the room of a boy called Jamie. The students stand awkwardly against the wall, forming what looks like an impromptu identity parade.