‘But that’s crazy! He’s harassing me on social media, he’s posting things trying to get me in trouble, trying to drive a wedge between me and Mel. I saw him yesterday, we spoke to him on the phone the day before that. I was talking to him literally a minute before you called.’

‘You spoke to him?’

‘On Messenger.’

‘Ah. From his account?’

‘No, he’s using a fake account under the name David Bramley. The point is, he’s taking potshots at me so he’s obviously alive and well and hiding away somewhere.’

‘Why would he have disappeared?’

‘He hasn’t disappeared, he just doesn’t want to go back to his wife. He wants mine instead. That’s why we need to find him, put a stop to this.’

Larssen paused for a moment, his voice slow and measured.

‘You could have posted those updates yourself.’

‘That’s insane.’

‘You could be posting as Ben, or David Bramley, or whatever his name is. Harassing yourself, in effect. Stranger things have been known.’

My chest felt tight, as if there was something pressing down on it.

‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’

‘Of course not. But Naylor might. It doesn’t help that Ben’s not been seen for several days.’

‘I’ve seen him.’

‘You don’t count, Joe.’

‘What, so I’m a suspect?’

‘That’s one of their lines of inquiry.’

I thought for a moment, trying to take all of it in. This had to stop.

‘What are you doing in the next hour?’ I said.

‘My diary’s clear until 1.30 p.m.’

‘Good. Meet me at Kilburn Police Station in twenty minutes.’

Chapter 39

39

‘I’m being set up,’ I said.

Naylor looked at me across the pockmarked table, frowning slightly.

‘Explain,’ he said.

And so I did. About the Facebook post, my suspension at work, my conversations on Messenger with ‘David Bramley’. About his message on my computer at home and his obsession with Mel.

‘He already hacked my Facebook account on Thursday night, like I told you yesterday. He’s hacked my home PC, he’s basically trying to wreck my career and he’s taunting me on social media using a pseudonym. I just want all of it to stop now. Enough’s enough.’

We were back in interview room 3 at the station, Larssen by my side. Naylor had given me the standard police caution at the start of our conversation and now he scrolled up the exchange of messages between me and ‘Bramley’, studying a few longer than others, before handing the phone back to me.

‘Well?’ I said.

The detective shrugged.

‘You could have sent those messages yourself.’

‘What possible reason would I have to do that?’

‘To put a different slant on things.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘So it looks like you’re the victim, not him.’

‘The victim of what?’