The bleep of the internal phone jolts Cullen awake. Asleep on the job, not like him at all. All those disturbed nights dealing with Amanda and last night, when he did finally drop off, a series of frantic, scratchy dreams. When he looks up his eyes fall on the Victorian etching of his alma mater that he’d put up on the wall beside his desk. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind he hears his mother’s voice, all those years ago, as he left their tiny, rented flat, hot-eyed and miserable, to walk to the freshers’ orientation. Don’t wipe your nose on your shirt sleeve. A fifteen-year-old kid in a college built for adults. The memory makes his heart shrink a little. He comforts himself by imagining the feel of her fingers drawing through his hair. My darling little boy.

There comes a knock on the door.

‘One moment.’ He checks his watch, remembers the pre-arranged meeting and brings up Nevis Smith’s file on his screen. Strange, quiet thing, otherworldly almost, but intensely academic. The only dead cert for a first in mathematical biosciences in the year. A gifted mathematician but otherwise of interest only in so far as what she might or might not know about Satnam Mann.

He wonders if Nevis Smith has Satnam’s phone. Not that he’s overly worried about it. No more than a four out of ten, but you never know.

Cullen arranges his features into an expression of repose and calls, ‘Please do come in!’ The door slides open and the girl enters. She looks tired and strung out.

‘Take a seat. Can I get you a coffee?’

She comes over to the desk, sits down in the visitor’s chair, lays her rucksack on the floor by her feet as if offering it protection at the same time as Cullen rises to get the coffee. She does not smile and in the fragility of her composure he senses bewilderment and guesses that all this high emotion has been difficult for her to process or perhaps to understand. Keane has told him that Nevis’s mother has been in touch, worried about her daughter.

Placing a cup of coffee beside her he resumes his seat. ‘How are you doing?’

‘I’m OK.’

‘Rather shaken up I should imagine.’

She bites her lip and with some reluctance says, ‘I’m fine. Like I told student welfare, I’m, you know…’ She tails off.

‘We are very concerned about Satnam’s welfare, obviously, but also about you,’ Cullen continues. ‘I’m sorry to put you through it again, but could you help me understand what happened that day? I’d like to understand for myself, to make sure we find the best way to support your studies. You are such a gifted student and I wouldn’t want this to set you off course.’ He waits until she has absorbed this, before going on, ‘Start from the beginning.’