Joe Romano reached for his mug and took a gulp. The coffee was stone-cold. He put it down on his desk amid a pile of case files. Break-ins mainly. There was another case open on his screen. Just admin for the insurance adjusters at this stage. Fiddly paperwork. Everything’s got to be right. This last one must have taken him, what, an hour?

He clicked ‘save’, logged out of the system and looked across the open-plan operations room. The shift was winding down. People rose from their seats, attending to aching lumbar regions, exchanging friendly words with night-shift officers and support staff, who’d just begun to trickle in.

‘Joe! Fancy a drink?’

A young man in a trim grey suit grinned. The question was ironic. Nothing new there. A few people looked over at Joe with a mixture of amusement and pity.

‘Or a bit of unpaid overtime? More your style, eh, Joe?’

Detective Constable Gwyn Merchant was one rank lower, and a decade younger. But you’d never have known. Cocksure with a wardrobe to match. The kind of guy who rarely got creases in the trousers of his Paul Smith suits.

He came across and handed Joe a slip of paper.

‘Misper. Only been gone a couple of days.’

‘Adult?’

‘Friggin’ scag,’ Merchant said, laughing, already walking away, thinking about his first pint. ‘His mammy rang it in. Worried sick. Bet she’s the only one.’

‘This is everything?’ Joe asked, looking at the paper in his hand.

Merchant stopped, turned, as if the question was slightly impertinent.

‘Mum wasn’t making much sense when she called, apparently. I was his last arresting officer. So they sent it through to me.’

‘Right. I’ll look into it.’

‘Piece o’ shit. He’ll be off his tits in a gutter,’ Merchant said as he went back to his desk. ‘Or dead in a gutter. Either way, log it ’n’ leave it, unless you’ve nowt better on.’

He patted his pockets, making sure he’d left nothing on his desk, and followed his mates towards the door. They all looked like they were gagging for a drink, for a laugh. CID officers? More like teenagers.

On the slip of paper there was a phone number and a name: Craig Shaw. One of Merchant’s arrests? Joe didn’t recognize the name. No surprise there. After a year coordinating missing persons and break-ins, Joe’s knowledge of serious crime in Leeds was about as peripheral as it got.

He logged back into the system for a quick look. It wasn’t as if anybody was going to be working at his desk tonight. It was an age since he’d handed over a live case to the night shift. At least this was a known individual. He could have a quick look for nothing.