‘I’m popping out again,’ she told him. ‘It can’t be helped. Hold the fort for me.’

He waved without looking up from his screen. ‘Missing you already.’

Lolly came towards her as she picked up her bag. ‘You okay, Lols, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘I think I did.’

Lolly’s untypical reticence made Sasha wary. ‘Out with it.’

‘I chased up that fella Jon Wilson from the drug support centre, the one who was going to get us details on Lydia’s mysterious boyfriend, Matt, yeah?’

‘And what did he say?’

Lolly grimaced. ‘That’s the thing… I phoned the centre again, asking to be put through to Jon, and there is no person of that name there.’

Sasha stared. ‘What are you telling me?’

‘There’s no Jon Wilson who works at the centre, he don’t exist.’

‘Then who the hell were we talking to?’ asked Craig, coming back into the room.

‘Alright.’ Heart sinking, Sasha dropped her bag back on the desk. ‘Tell me what you know.’

‘There was a woman there, remember her?’ Lolly said to Craig. ‘She was called Kathy, and she’s a volunteer at the centre. When I phoned that Jon to chase up the details on Matt Foster as he’d promised, she answered the phone and she said he recognized him as one of their clients, which was why she was surprised to see him in the admin office. He left us in there for a moment and went outside to apologize to her, said we were parole officers, and he needed privacy.’

‘Son of a bitch.’ Craig turned quickly to Sasha. ‘He acted like he had every right to be in that room.’

‘And who did she say this man was?’

Lolly swallowed. ‘She didn’t know his surname but knew him as… Matt. He’d attended group therapy sessions there several times.’

‘Matt!’ exclaimed Sasha, as Ajay drifted over to listen. ‘Lydia’s mysterious boyfriend?’

Lolly looked wretched. ‘All his details are missing from the centre.’

‘He was a very good liar, he was walking around like he owned the place,’ said Craig, as if that excused it. ‘And he was…’

Craig and Lolly shared a guilty glance.

‘And he was what?’ asked Sasha.

‘He was cleaning. Wiping down surfaces. Handles and chairs and stuff.’

‘Getting rid of evidence,’ said Ajay. ‘His own fingerprints.’

Craig shuffled uncomfortably from one foot to another. ‘And he took a file from a cabinet.’

‘What’s the betting that it’s the file with his personal details on it?’ Sasha dropped her head into a hand. ‘And he did all this while you were standing there talking to him?’

‘He was very convincing.’ Craig bristled. ‘What were we meant to do, ask for his ID?’

‘Yes, actually,’ Ajay said. ‘That would have been a good place to start.’

Craig folded his arms tight against his chest. ‘Well, we didn’t.’