Father Steiner nudged his glasses towards the bridge of his nose. He was a short man, with a shiny dome of a head but a face that appeared not to have aged at the same pace as the rest of him. He must have been at least as old as the headmaster, but if it weren’t for the stiffness of his movements and the slight stoop to his narrow shoulders, Fleet would estimate him to be twenty years younger. It didn’t even appear as though he shaved.

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Nicola Collins,’ Nicky replied. ‘This is Detective Inspector Robin Fleet.’

‘Welcome,’ said Father Steiner. ‘Both of you. Please, have a seat.’ He gestured towards the front row of pews.

‘Thank you,’ said Fleet, sensing Nicky shift slightly, ‘but we’re happy to stand.’ Even for Fleet, entering the church was one thing; taking a pew right in front of the altar felt like a regression too far.

‘By all means,’ said Father Steiner. ‘Although, do you mind if I sit down myself? The knees,’ he explained, with a grimace.

Fleet watched as the chaplain lowered himself on to the edge of a pew, at the end nearest the central aisle. Now, under the glow from the chandelier, he really did look his age. The yellow light changed the appearance of his skin, turning it the colour and texture of a page in a library-copy paperback.

‘I assume you’d like me to tell you about Ben. About what I remember from before he went missing.’

‘That would be very helpful, Father,’ said Fleet. ‘We understand you knew him quite well.’

The chaplain appeared mildly surprised. Then he gave a small sniff, as though working out where that particular piece of information would have come from. ‘It’s not uncommon for our headmaster to overstate my bond with a particular student, I’m afraid. The reality is, I didn’t know Ben particularly well. Not as well as I would have liked to, anyway. And perhaps not as well as I thought I did.’

The chaplain’s answer raised a dozen further questions in Fleet’s mind, but he waited for Father Steiner to go on.

‘Ben used to come here. To help out, initially. But then, like one or two others, he found reasons to keep coming back. It happens in a place like this more often than you might think.’ The chaplain gestured loosely around him, and Fleet understood that he was referring to the school itself. ‘Kids feel lost, abandoned, out of their depth, and the chapel is an obvious place of refuge, whether they believe in what the Bible teaches us or not.’

‘And that’s how Ben felt, would you say?’ asked Fleet. ‘Lost, out of his depth?’