Bex puts a hand to her mouth to suppress a giggle.

‘We’ll be careful,’ Silas says. ‘The car was stolen, by the way. The one that tried to run you over. We’ll let you know if we find it – or the driver. The local police have all the details.’

‘OK,’ Kate says. Silas catches a whiff of alcohol on her breath.

‘And we’ve asked a colleague to run a match for your partner,’ Strover adds.

Kate seems to sober up immediately. ‘And?’ she asks.

‘I’ll call you if we hear something.’

‘Me too, if you find a match,’ Bex adds. ‘Then we can have a toyboy each.’

Kate elbows her friend in the ribs. Silas is beginning to regret stopping by. But he knows there’s another reason why he needed to see Kate.

‘There’s something else I wanted to ask,’ he says.

‘I’m not coming back,’ Kate fires back.

‘I know you’re not.’ Silas pauses. She’s made that quite clear already. ‘It’s actually about my son, Conor. He’s been missing six weeks now. I’ve no idea where he is.’

This is proving harder than he thought. Kate and Strover both know that Conor had a drugs problem and was homeless, but it’s still not easy.

‘We used to come to this part of Cornwall for our holidays, when he was a boy,’ he continues. ‘I don’t know, it’s a long shot, but he might have headed down here – somewhere familiar. Where he was happy.’

He stops before he makes a fool of himself. Then he pulls out an A4 sheet and hands it to Kate. It’s a missing persons poster, with a photo of Conor taken a couple of years back, when he was still living at home and relatively stable.

‘Do you want me to put it up in the village?’ Kate asks. All the giggling of earlier has gone.

‘No need,’ Silas says. ‘Just keep an eye out for him. Remember his face. In case he should ever pass through here. You’re good at spotting someone in a crowd. Very good.’

‘I’ll do that,’ she says, looking at the photo.

The last time Silas saw Conor, he was living rough in a multi-storey car park in the middle of Swindon.

The four of them stand in awkward silence for a few moments before Silas turns to walk away.

‘Can you check something else for me?’ Kate calls out. ‘About Rob?’

Silas stops, surprised. He thought they were quits now, her looking out for Conor in return for them searching for Rob’s double on the database.

‘I think Rob might have another Tesla, just like that one,’ she says, gesturing at the car on the drive.