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way. According to Google, Hamish Sloss didn’t exist. There was quite a clan of Slosses in Scotland; but if any of them were called Hamish, they didn’t appear to have an Internet presence—no Bebo,no Facebook, no YouTube video. Nothing!
    So he tried searching for ‘Ham’, and while at first the result looked better, it proved just as useless. There were a hundred million web pages containing the word ‘ham’. One or more of them might be about his father, but after looking at just over fifty, he realized that it would be impossible to view them all. To Luke, it was worse than getting no hits. His father might be on one of those pages, and yet there was no way that he could ever find him.

Chapter 7
    It was Wednesday before the DP once again called Luke into her office. A manila folder lay on the desk in front of Luke.
    ‘I can’t let you open it, but there’s no harm in you seeing the cover.’
    Immediately, Luke’s eyes went to the small photo in the top right-hand corner. There he saw a boy with sandy hair, fair complexion, and twinkling grey eyes. Any doubts he’d had about Hamish being his father evaporated. The likeness was so striking that it was almost like looking in a mirror.
    ‘Looks like he’s my dad, doesn’t it?’ he said, quietly.
    The DP nodded. ‘Without a doubt, I would say.’
    Luke’s eyes scanned down to the written details. Hamish Boyd Sloss was born on 12 July 1975, which made him a year older than Alice. He and his family had lived on Cook Drive. He’d had no brothers or sisters at school, which suggested he was probably an only child. He’d left the school when he wasthirteen to attend Thames High School.
    That was it! Not much, but it was a start. At least the date of birth might prove useful.
    As the DP leaned over to remove the folder, she said, ‘There’s nothing inside that I can show you without breaching school confidentiality. However, I can say that he was a bright boy, who could have done a lot better if he’d tried a bit harder.’ She peered at him over her glasses. ‘That seems to run in the family, doesn’t it?’
    Luke shrugged.
    ‘If you want to find out more, I suggest you try the Thames High School yearbooks, which you might find—’
    She was interrupted by loud shouting coming from the corridor. It was a kid screaming abuse at someone—a teacher by the sound of it. The DP was on her feet and out the door in a shot. Her loud but calm voice broke through the string of foul language enough to quieten the kid a little. Other teachers came out of their offices, and the culprit was led away to a less public area.
    Luke looked into the corridor and found that he was the only one left in the vicinity. He sat for a moment, staring at the folder. Inside those covers was more information about his father. He didn’t know what it might be, but anything could be useful. He needed that information, even if it was more than twenty years old.
    He had the folder open before he’d really made up his mind to look. At the top were a lot of old reports stapled together which were of no interest to Luke. Beneath them were copies of letterssent to Hamish’s parents. It soon became clear that Hamish had got into a lot of trouble at school. Theft of property—particularly from teachers—seemed to be the main problem. Then came a letter more official-looking than the others. It was a report from a Board of Governors’ meeting where Hamish Sloss had been expelled for the theft of seventy-six dollars of mufti-day money. A place had been found for him at Thames High School, commencing immediately.
    Luke closed the folder and slid it back across the desk, wishing he’d never opened the thing. The image he’d formed of Hamish was as a rugged pig hunter, not as a kid who stole at school. He left the office wondering if he wanted to continue digging into his father’s past. What else might there be to find?
    Beth had reorganized her lounge. The TV was now mounted on the wall,