Robin waited, leaving the space for her to fill, but Lucy took a sip of her tea and looked out of the window. Through a fine mesh – to block sun on the plate glass, Robin guessed; there was optimism for you – their view was two multi-storey car parks and a Fifties flat-roofed office building. Beyond those, the grungy, slab-sided Holiday Inn was dwarfed by an incongruous tower of shining silver-blue glass. In the murk at street level, the lights were beginning to come on, the February afternoon already dimming towards evening.

‘What about her new job, at The Spot?’

Lucy looked back. ‘It’s not that new, she’s been doing it a while now. September – we went there for Ryan’s birthday, another mate of ours. She’d been talking about going on holiday next summer – somewhere proper, you know – and she needed money. She said it looked fun to work there so she went in a couple of days later to ask. Have you been?’

‘Not yet.’

‘It’s not just a bar. They do food and there’s a club bit upstairs – DJs. The drinks are expensive, which is why it wasn’t our regular.’

‘Was it fun working there?’

‘She said so, yeah, she liked the people. It doesn’t shut ’til two so she was knackered if she had to do the close but it didn’t seem to bother her, really. She just slept in at the weekend.’

‘You never got the impression there was anything dodgy going on there?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Her mum doesn’t sound keen on it.’

A small shrug. ‘She thinks she’d be better off doing a college course, doesn’t she? But Becca’s not into it.’

‘If it meant earning more in her day job, though? She could save for a holiday without having to work nights.’

Another shrug. ‘Maybe. I mean, obviously she’d like to get paid more but it probably wouldn’t be enough, the difference. And it would take too long. And it’s still just working in an accounts office, isn’t it?’

‘She doesn’t like it?’

‘No, it’s not … She does, and the Hanley family – especially Roger, her boss, she likes him a lot – but it’s not setting the world on fire, is it? It’s not what you dream of when you’re a little girl: When I grow up I want to process invoices.’

‘You think she had something else in mind?’

‘Don’t we all?’ Lucy looked at her full-beam.

She knew, Robin realized suddenly. She’d told her her name on the phone – Lucy had Googled her and found the stories. Of course she had: what young person wouldn’t Google a total stranger claiming to be a private investigator?

‘I guess so,’ she said. ‘But she hadn’t talked about it? Hadn’t been making plans to go travelling sooner rather than later?’ She remembered Becca’s passport, still in the drawer.