Ashley shook her head. ‘It was a spur of the moment thing. We went and had a look at what was on, to see if there was something we all fancied. And when Nad spotted that French film she was made up.’ Her face crumpled. ‘That might have been the last thing she ever did before he got her, right?’ Tears dribbled down her cheeks again.

‘We don’t know, Ashley. Now, here’s how you can help us even more. I want you to cast your mind back to that Saturday. Were you aware of anyone following you? Was there anybody you kept catching sight of?’

Ashley frowned, concentrating on recall. ‘Nothing springs to mind. We were just out having a laugh and a shop, we weren’t paying attention to anybody else.’

‘And you didn’t get into a ruck with anybody? Nobody hit on you?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing like that. Like I said, we weren’t interested in anybody else.’

‘You didn’t see any guys you fancied, then?’

Ashley gave her a shrewd look. ‘Not that we did anything about. We were looking, like. When we were sitting down eating, we were checking out the talent. But not in any serious way. Just, like, “he’s hench”, or, like, “he’s got a nice bum”. We never spoke to any of them and they never spoke to us. It was totally, like, normal.’

‘What about boyfriends? Was Nadia seeing anybody?’

Ashley looked down at the table. ‘Not any more.’

Paula caught Fielding’s eye. They were both like pointers who had caught a whiff of prey. ‘She’d been seeing someone?’