‘We’re not making assumptions at the moment,’ Singh said smoothly. ‘We need to know everything that might possibly be relevant, then we can decide what’s important and what isn’t.’

Well, Bradley has definitely seemed worried. He’s been asking about what’s happening, if Leon’s been found yet. The look on her face suggested she wasn’t convinced by Singh’s reasoning.

I wondered if we’d be speaking to Bradley again today, given what Sasha had told us. If there was some stuff going on in Leon’s personal life that upset him, that could have been the catalyst that led to him running away. And just because none of the adults who had been on the trip had witnessed another fight, it didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. Leon, Bradley and Kian were sharing a room, with no supervision overnight, so nobody really knew what had gone on in that room after everyone went to bed. The more people we spoke to, the more obvious it was that the police were wading into a minefield of conflicting information. I had no idea how they were going to figure out which details were important and which were irrelevant.

‘Has Leon ever talked to you about any concerns he’s had in school?’ Singh asked.

Never, she replied, shaking her head emphatically. He felt safe here, I’m sure of it.

‘What about any people he was close to outside school?’

No, I would have told you. He didn’t have any family other than his parents. His mum is dead and there is no way he’d want to visit his dad.

‘Can you tell us more about Leon’s dad?’ Forest asked, changing tack.

He’s a violent man. That’s why Leon’s mum left him, but she never reported anything so social services weren’t aware of his unsuitability as a parent. She looked down at her feet for a moment before continuing. I feel partly responsible for what happened to him. I was one of the people who allowed Leon to go into his dad’s custody. We weren’t to know what he was like, without so much as a complaint filed against him.

Leon hasn’t told me all of it, but he said it started off small. The occasional cuff around the ear for not picking up after himself, or spending too long on the computer. But it escalated as time went on. His dad couldn’t sign very well, and Leon’s understanding of speech is limited, so the communication barrier caused a lot of problems. He didn’t always know what his dad expected of him, which obviously caused frustration on both sides. By the time everything came to a head, I think Leon was being beaten on a regular basis.