“Any trouble at all?”

“Not really trouble. Nothing his form tutor couldn’t deal with.”

“Tell me.”

“Luke didn’t like games, and he once forged a note from his mother excusing him on the grounds of a stomach upset. It was a note the PE teacher remembered seeing a few months earlier, and Luke had traced it out with a new date. Quite a good forgery, really.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing much. Detention, a warning to his mother. Odd, as he wasn’t bad at all.”

“Wasn’t bad at what?”

“Rugby. Luke was a decent wing three-quarters. Fast and slippery. When he could be bothered playing.”

“But he didn’t like games?”

“He had no interest in sports. He’d far rather read, or just sit in a corner and stare out the window. God only knows what was going on in that head of his half the time.”

“Did Luke have any close friends at school, any other pupils he might have confided in?”

“I really can’t say. He always seemed to be a bit of a loner. We encourage group activities, of course, but you can’t always…I mean, you can’t force people to be sociable, can you?”

Banks opened his briefcase and slipped out the artist’s impression of the girl Josie Batty had seen going to HMV with Luke. “Do you recognize this girl?” he asked, not sure of how close a likeness it was.

Barlow squinted at it, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “I can’t say as I do. I’m not saying we don’t have pupils who affect that general look, but not very many, and nobody quite like this.”

“So you’ve never seen her or anyone like her with Luke?”

“No.”

Banks returned the sketch to his briefcase. “What about his schoolwork? Did he show any promise?”

“Enormous promise. His work in math left a lot to be desired, but when it came to English and music, he was remarkably gifted.”

“What about the other subjects?”

“Good enough for university, if that’s what you mean. Especially languages and social studies. You could tell that even at his early age. Unless…”

“What?”

“Well, unless he went off the rails. I’ve seen it happen before with bright and sensitive pupils. They fall in with the wrong crowd, neglect their work…You can guess the rest.”

Banks, who had gone off the rails a bit himself after Graham’s disappearance, could. “Were there any teachers Luke was particularly close to?” he asked. “Anyone who might be able to tell me a bit more about him?”

“Yes. You might try Ms. Anderson. Lauren Anderson. She teaches English and art history. Luke was way ahead of his classmates in his appreciation of literature, and in its composition, and I believe Ms. Anderson gave him extra tutoring.”

Lauren Anderson’s name had come up in the company’s records of Luke’s cell phone calls, Banks remembered. “Is that something the school does often?”

“If the student seems likely to benefit from it, then yes, certainly. You have to understand that we get such a broad range of abilities and interests, and we have to pitch our teaching level just a little above the middle. Too high and you lose most of the class, too low and the brighter students become bored and distracted. But it’s not all as bad as they say it is in the newspapers. We’re lucky in that we have a lot of passionate and committed teachers at Eastvale Comprehensive. Ms. Anderson is one of them. Luke was also taking violin lessons after school.”