Liz Marcek stared at the detectives for a moment, then shook her head. How can he have been so stupid? Oh Leon.

‘Is it possible Steve knew about this?’ Singh asked. ‘Could he have found out Leon was planning to meet a stranger while they were on the trip, and tried to stop him?’

Liz seemed to think about this for a moment, then shrugged. I suppose so. If he thought that Leon was in danger.

‘Is there any reason he wouldn’t want to involve you, let you know his concerns?’

She sighed. I don’t know. Steve liked to do things his own way, and that sometimes meant doing things himself rather than delegating or even discussing it with the rest of the staff. Maybe he didn’t trust us?

She looked sad for a moment, then turned to look at me.

You already knew about this. Why didn’t you tell me the truth?

I was so taken aback by this that I forgot to interpret her words for the detectives until Singh prompted me.

‘I didn’t know about it,’ I said, as the four of them stared at me. I turned to Singh. ‘A couple of days ago I saw Cassie, Courtney, Bradley and Kian talking about someone called Joe, asking if they could trust him. I thought maybe he was another student, so I asked Sasha and Liz about him.’

Singh nodded, accepting my explanation, though Forest’s eyes remained narrowed. Even after I’d proven myself to be good at my job she continued to look for any sign I could be a problem to her, but I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong this time.

Turning back to the deputy head, the DI stood up. ‘In which case, I think we need to talk to your students again, and find out what it is they’ve been hiding from us.’

Chapter 16

Forest left Singh to interview the students, taking the opportunity to liaise with the tech team to see if they’d been able to trace Joe. Sasha took us over to the residence, where we waited for a very long ten minutes until the students shuffled in, dropping their bags on the floor. I was surprised to see Samira, because she wasn’t one of the students who had been discussing Joe, but if Leon confided in her a lot then it was possible she also knew what was going on.

Kian sat on one of the sofas while his brother stood behind him, Courtney leant on Bradley, her phone out and her thumb moving quickly across the touchscreen, and Cassie and Samira sat on another sofa.

What’s going on? Bradley asked. Have you found Leon?