It was cramped and smelled of old sweat and body spray. They each took a seat.

‘I don’t want to get in trouble,’ Darpana said. ‘He’s not worth it.’

‘Who’s not worth it?’ Baarda asked. His tone was warm and kind.

‘My boyfriend.’ She seemed to notice Connie for the first time. ‘Am I allowed to ask who you are?’

‘I’m a forensic psychologist. My role is to assimilate the evidence and help build a profile of the man who’s abducted your friend Elspeth.’

‘My friend?’ she laughed. ‘Do you have many friends who sleep with your partner?’

Connie gave the disclosure a few seconds of silence, in recognition of its enormity in the context of Darpana’s life.

‘Is that what Elspeth did to you?’ she asked.

‘Yes, it is. Just once, or at least that’s what Nick told me. I found a photo on my boyfriend’s phone.’

‘Sorry to have to ask such an indelicate question, but what was the content of the photo?’ Baarda said.

‘Elspeth, naked, in our shower. Afterwards, apparently. She obviously didn’t know he’d taken the photo.’

‘Yet Elspeth was still attending your classes, and you’re still referring to him as your boyfriend. How was that resolved?’ Connie asked.

Darpana rubbed her forehead. ‘We’d been going through a hard time. My fault as well as his. I’d been away at a training weekend, and I got too close to another trainer. Combination of alcohol and stress. I admitted to Nick that I’d been unfaithful, and he said he understood. Then he met Elspeth at a social here a couple of months later. They connected on social media, which was fine because I’d known her for years. It was six months ago now. I was visiting family, and they met for dinner. He said none of it was planned, and you know the rest. I could hardly complain. I’d done it to him first.’

‘Must have made things difficult with Elspeth, though,’ Connie said.