‘What else?’ Rich said with a dismissive bark. ‘That’s all kids these days are obsessed with, isn’t it? Spending all day staring at phones, never talking to each other like normal people. It’s all about likes and comments. They put their whole lives on the internet and expect nothing bad to ever happen, then act all surprised when it does.’

‘How did this start?’ Mark said, discarding the short notes he’d made for himself and trusting his own instincts. ‘She came to you for advice?’

‘Something like that,’ Rich replied, shaking his head again, as if the idea had been ridiculous. ‘Like I know anything of that world. What I do know, though, is people and maybe that’s why she came to me. Something had kicked off around her and she wasn’t sure how to deal with it. I spent some time with her, trying to talk some sense into her.’

‘What kind of sense?’

‘That it didn’t matter. That in a few days everyone would have forgotten about it and moved on to the next thing. And I thought it had. She didn’t talk about it for weeks. I think we know I was wrong.’

‘She was in some kind of trouble then? Before she went missing?’

‘No, that was ages ago. It was all sorted out, she told me. You know how it is with these kids. She never made out it was anything bad. She didn’t know how to get out of it, that was all. A few nasty messages, but she told me it was nothing that bad. She just didn’t know how to deal with it.’

‘We have information that Emily was doing something on the internet – do you know what that was?’

‘The pretending to be other people thing?’ Rich said, now looking at Mark and ignoring the mute DS Cavanagh. ‘That what you’re talking about?’

‘I think the term is catfishing,’ Mark replied, earning a dismissive wave from Rich.

‘Whatever it’s called, still the same bollocks as the rest of it. They said she was pretending to be other people online and going after that lot who bullied her in school. Making them do things and say things that would embarrass them, stuff like that. Kiddy stuff, you know. I didn’t understand it when Emily told me about it and I still don’t. Seems like no one online is who they say they really are. That’s just another part of it. All the fights take place on Facebook or whatever and then when they see each other in person they don’t know what to do. The world’s changing.’

‘Emily was targeting people who had bullied her online.’

‘That’s the thing, no she wasn’t. Not anymore. She was caught out a year or two ago and stopped. She said someone was doing it again and was pretending to be her, pretending to be someone else…’