Singh nodded and took a big gulp of his coffee.

I shook my head slowly. ‘You think this person might have persuaded him to run away?’

‘That’s a big leap right now, but it’s certainly something we’ll look into.’

We sat in silence for a moment, while Singh looked enviously at my scone. He went to order his own, and I waited until he had sat down and was settled before continuing.

‘What about his social media?’

‘Without his phone we can’t track every network he was using. We know he was on Facebook and Snapchat, and we’re trying to get access to his messages and WhatsApp.’

‘Have you tried some of the video-based networks? OoVoo was a popular one with a lot of deaf people, but it shut down last year. There’ll be others, though. Can you get his call records? He might be more likely to video chat with people rather than text them, depending on the situation.’

‘We’ll get all of that checked, thanks.’

Finally taking a swig of his coffee, Singh sat back and rubbed his face. ‘I had really hoped for a slightly less complicated case for my first one as DS.’

I nodded sympathetically, but I couldn’t help wondering why he’d asked me here for coffee, so I put the question to him.

‘Why are we here, Rav? I know it’s not just so you can tell me about what Leon’s been doing online.’

He sighed. ‘I wanted to ask you about Mike Lowther, and I got the feeling it wasn’t something you’d want to talk about while we were still at the school.’

I felt like someone had poured a bucket of ice water over my head. Looking down at my lap, I examined my hands for a moment, before forcing a smile. ‘Of course. What do you want to know?’

Singh spread his hands. ‘Well, how do you know him? What’s the source of this animosity I can sense between you?’

‘Did you ask him?’ I asked, looking down at my drink, scared of the answer.

‘What? Of course not. It wasn’t appropriate.’

I let out a sigh of relief. If I was going to have this conversation with Singh, I wanted to be the one to get my side in first, just to make sure he believed me. But I didn’t really want to go into detail.

‘He’s my ex,’ I replied. ‘We were together for about five years, and we split up three years ago.’

Singh waited for me to continue but I resisted. ‘I assume it wasn’t a particularly amicable break-up?’ he asked eventually.

I smiled ruefully. ‘Not exactly. In fact, the whole relationship was pretty awful, to be honest. But it’s all water under the bridge. I just wasn’t expecting to see him on Saturday, and it wasn’t a nice surprise.’