‘He was drunk.’

‘Apparently so. But roughly 5 p.m. was the last direct contact you had with him?’

‘Not exactly. He posted on my Facebook account later that evening.’ I described the Facebook posts as clearly as I could remember them.

‘On your account?’

‘He had my mobile. I dropped it.’

‘Right, got you. Did you leave the posts up?’

‘Deleted them. Sorry, was that the wrong thing to do?’

‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘We can get that stuff back anyway.’

He made a note of my Facebook username and was silent for a minute, checking off the other details on the form.

‘What happens now?’ I said. ‘With Ben, I mean?’

PC Khan stacked the papers in front of him and stapled them together.

‘All the recent paperwork gets passed on to the demand management inspector tomorrow morning, for what we call the daily management meeting. He makes an assessment of the current caseload, and decides how resources are going to be allocated each day in our area. We only have a certain number of officers on any given day, obviously.’

‘So, do you think an officer will be allocated to this?’

The constable shrugged, smiled.

‘That’s a bit above my pay grade, I’m afraid. The inspector makes an assessment of the level of potential risk to an individual, and allocates resources accordingly. That’s how it works with mispers – case-by-case basis, according to the level of risk.’

‘Mispers?’

‘Sorry: missing persons.’ He smiled again. ‘Jargon.’

‘And then what? Is Ben deemed to be high risk, low risk, somewhere in the middle?’

‘There are no hard and fast rules about it – it’s a judgement call by the inspector according to the evidence and the resources he has available. And it depends on the individual. So, for example, if you were talking about a young child, that would almost always get elevated into a high-risk category straight away, for obvious reasons.’

‘So an adult, a businessman like Ben, he’d probably be lower risk?’

‘Like I said, that’s a bit above my pay grade.’

‘And what if he poses a risk to others?’

‘How do you mean, sir?’

‘Beth said one of his shotguns is missing. He may have taken it with him.’

‘Mrs Delaney mentioned that. But in the absence of any other intelligence about her husband and his whereabouts, all I can suggest is that you stay vigilant, and if you have any concerns at all about your family’s safety, call us on this number.’

He handed me a card and stood up.

‘Thanks,’ I said, taking the card from him.

‘Of course this is all assuming that Mr Delaney doesn’t make contact with his family between now and tomorrow. I can appreciate that you’re all worried about him, but the truth is, most people do turn up sooner or later.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

We shook hands and he showed me out.

19

Beth and Ben’s daughter, Alice, was due to babysit for us that night. Mel offered to postpone but Beth insisted it was fine and that Alice was looking forward to it. She was a nice kid, very quiet and level-headed, super-smart with technology – just like her dad – and sensible beyond her years. In fact she was more sensible at fourteen than I had been at twenty-one. William liked her too, and wouldn’t be frightened if he called out in the night and she appeared at his bedside. We promised Beth that we’d be quick and have her home by ten.