‘I hope not. But Lana’s PTSD could make her a candidate for something like that. Let’s try and find out if Stuart was similarly vulnerable, if he was depressed. And if he’s in the habit of going missing, or losing touch. If he’s impulsive or impressionable. And if there’s anything going on that would make him susceptible to coercion.’

‘Could these people have crossed the wrong person?’

‘We need to find the link.’

Bloom’s phone buzzed on the table and she headed out of the carriage to answer it.

Five minutes later, she returned to her seat. ‘That was the PC who attended Stuart Rose-Butler’s road-traffic accident.’

‘How’d you find him?’

‘Contacts.’ Bloom smiled. ‘He said they treated it as abandonment initially. But after a couple of days they spoke to his partner, Libby, and his employer, the ASDA in Pudsey – he’s a shelf-stacker – and a few friends. It seems Stuart was prone to flitting between jobs. His parents passed away when he was young and Libby and his friends have only known him a few years. The officer said they passed it on to CID as a missing-persons case but were pretty sure he’d done a runner due to impending fatherhood.’

‘Sounds like a stand-up guy. What about the game?’

‘Well, this is interesting. One of the witnesses said they saw the driver of the other vehicle involved in the collision hand a card to Stuart.’

‘Really? Someone may have seen who’s doing this?’

‘Possibly, but the other two witnesses had no recollection of such a handover taking place. The other car was gone by the time the police arrived and they didn’t follow it up.’

‘Good police work.’ Jameson drained the dregs of his tea.

Libby Goodman lived in a neat little house in Horsforth, on the outskirts of Leeds. It had a small, pretty front garden filled with daffodils. Bloom knocked on the wooden door and a heavily pregnant woman with tight dark curls opened it.

‘Libby Goodman? I’m Dr Bloom. We spoke. And this is Marcus Jameson.’

‘Yes. Hello. Come on in.’ Libby walked through to the lounge with one hand tucked beneath her belly. Bloom and Jameson took the two single chairs, leaving the sofa for Libby. It was useful to have her swivelling between them, facing only one of them at a time, so that the other could observe her reactions.

‘Thank you for seeing us, Libby,’ Jameson said, his charm turned up to ten. He explained about Jane and Lana, how he knew them and why he and Bloom were looking into Stuart’s disappearance. Then he asked Libby to tell them about the day Stuart went missing.