‘Why?’

‘I don’t trust the police.’

‘I see. I understand you saw Mr Scott a couple of days ago?’

‘That’s right. He was very aggressive.’

‘He’s upset.’

He drank some coffee. ‘Well, so am I bloody upset. I’m in my final year. I’ve only got three units to get but they’re bloody hard. Plus I’m doing two part-time jobs. It’s tough. The rent here’s cheap and I can’t afford to move, but I can’t afford to pay it all myself. I’ll have to get someone else in and that’s not easy at this time of year. Clinton’s left me in the fucking lurch.’

‘I sympathise,’ I said. ‘But he’s missing. It’s not just that he’s pissed off somewhere. Something might have happened to him. Doesn’t that affect how you feel?’

It was clear from the defiant way he looked and drank more coffee that it did, but he wasn’t going to admit it. ‘Shit, what could happen to him? He’s as tough as they come, super fit. The Black Prince, that’s what they call him. He’s on top of everything. Well, he was…’

‘Okay, Noel, now we’re getting to it. He was on top of everything until when?’

He rubbed his chin where dark bristles were beginning to show through the pale skin. He was thinner than he should have been and his eyes showed tiredness and strain. ‘All right, about a month ago he went into a bit of a spin. I thought it was about this girl he had…’

‘You didn’t mention a girl to his father.’

‘I was scared of him. I thought he was going to take the place apart. I said as little as I possibly could.’

I nodded. I could imagine an upset Wesley being very frightening. ‘A girl’

‘Yeah, well, Clinton seemed dead keen on her, then she was out of the picture. I’ve known him for a couple of years and he’s had more girls than I’ve had hot dinners. I thought he’d get over it but he didn’t seem to. He got moody and that. He stopped going to football and basketball training, or turned up late. He got sloppy around the house and hard to get on with. He was like a different person.’