‘Was there anyone on the staff who was finding it difficult to adapt to working under a new head?’

She paused for a moment before replying. No, I don’t think so. Steve never mentioned anything that concerned him, and nobody has come to me with any complaints.

Liz looked poised to sign something else, then thought better of it and sat back in her chair.

‘We’ll need access to Steve’s office, as well as his passwords so our tech team can have a look at his emails and online activity. At the moment, we’re looking for anyone who might have a motive to kill him.’

Liz nodded. I can lock his office until you’re ready to go in. Saul is in today, he’s our IT technician, so he can get you access to Steve’s computer as well.

‘Thank you, but a member of our tech team should be here a little later. If your technician could give them access to the school computer network, that would be appreciated,’ Singh replied. ‘Now, we’d like to ask you a couple more questions about Leon.’

Liz nodded. Sasha will be over soon and she’ll be able to tell you a bit more, but I’ll answer what I can. We both stayed last night, in the residence, but I don’t think either of us slept, wondering what’s happened to Leon.

‘I’ll let you know as soon as we know anything. There were no signs of a struggle and he took his bag with him, which suggests he left the cabin of his own free will. I’m hopeful that he had a plan for where he was going and how he would get there, so we can hope he’ll be found somewhere safe.’

I thought about the pavilion, and Leon breaking in. Had that been part of his plan? Was it just somewhere handy to shelter from the snow? Or somewhere to hide from a killer?

He’s only fifteen, Liz said, shaking her head in desperation. What was he thinking? If there was something wrong, he could have come to one of us and talked about it. We would have helped him, whatever the problem was.

‘Sometimes teenagers don’t feel they can trust adults,’ Singh replied gently.

She shook herself again, turning around to look out of the window. After a moment, she turned back to us. Leon had been struggling with his lessons recently, but nothing that was a cause for concern. He just found the work challenging. Steve had spoken to him a couple of times, to ask if anything was bothering him, but nothing came of it as far as I know.

Singh tilted his head to one side. ‘Did Steve and Leon have a lot of contact? More than would be usual for a head teacher and a student?’