She’d sat, her leg propped up on a chair while she’d waited, Luke pacing to and fro like a caged tiger. When she’d finally been called to X-ray, she’d returned some time later to find him engaged in a noisy conversation with several waiting patients, including a very drunk man with a tattooed face, a middle-aged woman with a black eye, a couple of pensioners and a teenager who reeked of weed. They’d all laughed uproariously as she approached, Luke clearly in the midst of a long and apparently hilarious story about how he’d broken his leg as a teenager. It seemed that the pall of wretchedness had entirely dissipated, a party spirit in the air now.

She hadn’t broken her ankle, but the pain was still eye-watering. ‘Wait here a sec,’ Luke had said, and off he’d vanished only to appear five minutes later with a wheelchair.

‘Are you sure we can take this?’ she’d asked, looking at it doubtfully.

‘Yep, all sorted,’ and he’d raised his hand to wave at a nurse at the other end of the corridor. ‘Bring it back tomorrow, Sue!’ he’d called and she’d rolled her eyes good-naturedly and nodded. Out on the street he’d pushed her sensibly for a few minutes, before picking up pace and stampeding down the pavements, pretending to career into lampposts and bushes, veering away at the last moment and as they’d headed towards the nearest pub at breakneck speed she’d shrieked and laughed so much she’d forgotten all about her throbbing ankle. Later he’d made her favourite dinner and invited her best friend Zoe around with a bottle of wine to cheer her up. That was the thing about Luke: he could turn any bad situation into something fun. He made everything feel like a party. She looked up to see the police station ahead of her, and taking a deep breath, pushed the memory away.

DS Anderson ushered her past the front desk and through to a large and busy office where several officers worked, either on phones or tapping away at computers. Nobody glanced up as she arrived, and Anderson led her to a corner desk and nodded for her to sit. There was something different about him today, she thought; a businesslike briskness, a grim purposefulness that made her uneasy. She sat without a word, bracing herself for whatever was coming.

Taking a seat next to her, he pressed the mouse of his computer and the screen flickered into life. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘This is CCTV footage of—’