The two other men laughed, but Tom was not amused. Now wasn’t the time to read Jack the riot act, but he had made a stupid, irresponsible decision.

‘I was fed up with just listening. It’s good to be able to have a conversation in something other than Spanish, for one thing,’ Jack said, alluding to the fact that he had most probably been living somewhere in South America. ‘And for another, I can help you find out where Hannah is. I owe Nathan that, Tom. He’s a friend.’

‘Fine. But it was one thing asking Nathan to bring Hannah’s computer so you could take it away and perform your magic. It’s another to expect me to sit here while you illegally hack into various databases right in front of me, because I guess that’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it?’ he asked.

‘First things first. We need to get into her computer and check her social media and email accounts to see if there’s anything interesting that might suggest where she’s gone. If they come up blank, we’ll check out the people who attended the mindfulness retreat and see if there’s any correlation with the passenger list for the boat. I can also see if Hannah’s mobile has a signal anywhere, although I would guess that has been tested already?’

Nathan shrugged. ‘I don’t know if the police have checked it out, but I paid for it to be done. There hasn’t been a signal for months – since November. In the couple of days before her phone disappeared off the grid she was all over the place, or at least, her phone was.’

‘Okay,’ Jack said. ‘We can look at that later if we need to. Let’s get into her computer first, check out anything she’s posted and then see if we can find out what that retreat company was called.’

Tom pushed his chair back. ‘I’ll let you two get on with it. I’ll go and sit on a stool at the island, far enough away so I don’t know what you’re doing.’ He didn’t add that he wanted to be close enough to hear what was going on.

He saw Jack pull a lead from his pocket and plug it into Hannah’s computer. The other end went into his, and he started tapping on his keyboard. Without asking the question, Tom was sure Jack’s computer was communicating with Hannah’s in some weird and wonderful way. He gave a small shake of the head and walked out into the hall to grab his briefcase. He might as well look at some of this morning’s scintillating reports while he listened with one ear to what was happening at the table.