‘Yeah. It always comes back to that. But even then it would most likely wash back up. I did a lot of calculations on this, and I think I ended up deciding that the river would have been a possibility because it’s deep in places, and if you weighed the body down it could stay there forever. But they dredged it. Of course they did, and there was no trace of anything. That’s why I come back to abduction. His body’s gone, so it must be somewhere else. They could have taken him anywhere in the country.’ Lucas looked at us again and smiled. ‘Sorry. Again, don’t put this in your magazine.’

‘We won’t,’ I said. ‘But, talking of the article, can you give us a bit of background on the day he went missing? Can you remember the last conversation you and Joe had?’

Lucas was silent for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was far away and sad.

‘Funny thing,’ he said. ‘You go over something enough times and it stops being real. Like now – am I remembering my last conversation with Joe, or am I remembering myself thinking about it endlessly for years? I’m not sure I can keep the real thing and my memories of it apart from each other. So he was supposed to be going on the French trip that night. They never went, of course. You can’t set off on a coach when one of the party has vanished. But I do remember seeing him at school that day. I used to hang around on the way to school, on the road that I knew he and Troy took, and try to walk with them. I sound like I had a crush or something. I didn’t. I just wanted a friend, and somehow the more Joe told me to fuck off – he could be direct – the more I hung around like a puppy. Though it would have been quite a puppy: six foot tall and built like a shithouse.