‘I’m really pleased you’re here,’ Singh said with a smile, then blushed. ‘I mean because we need you. To interpret. We’ve been working with a member of staff until now,’ he continued, his words coming out in a rush, ‘but he’s not a qualified interpreter.’

‘What happened?’ I asked. Any information they could give me would help when I was interpreting, so I understood the context of the situation and who I would be interpreting for.

‘There’s a group here from Lincoln School for the Deaf,’ Singh replied. ‘Five students and three staff members. They’re staying in one of the cabins in the woods, for the weekend. When they got up at seven thirty this morning, one of the students was missing. The head teacher went out to look for him around eight but hasn’t come back. There’s been no sign of either of them since.’

I checked my watch: 10:45. It seemed strange for the head teacher to be gone for so long without contact.

‘Two people missing? I was only told about the boy,’ I said.

‘Technically we can’t treat the teacher as a missing person yet,’ Forest replied, ‘because he’s only been gone for a few hours, so right now we’re focusing on finding the boy. The staff discovered he was missing when they woke up this morning, but nobody has seen him since half past ten last night.’

I nodded, understanding the seriousness of the situation. A missing deaf teenager would be considered to be at risk, whether he’d disappeared of his own accord or someone had taken him. The communication barrier might make it harder for him to get help in an emergency, and he could be confused and isolated.

‘His name is Leon and he’s fifteen,’ Singh told me. ‘According to the staff, he’s a nice lad and nothing out of the ordinary has happened recently that might precipitate him running away.’

‘What about his family? Are they deaf or hearing?’ I asked, wondering if the police would need me to liaise with them.

Forest shook her head. ‘He’s in care. The five students on the trip are permanent residents at the school. Leon’s mother died when he was eleven, then his father went to prison a year later, so he was taken into the care of the school, which is registered as a children’s home.’

‘As you can see, he’s particularly vulnerable, which is why we’ve brought CID in straight away,’ Singh told me, his face grave.

‘Okay. What do you want me to do?’