Page 25 of So, I Met This Guy . . .

‘And, anyway, this way you get to ask the questions you wanted the police to ask.’

‘What if he says no comment?’

‘Did you ever know him to say no comment?’

Maggie gave a rueful smile. ‘No, he had an answer for everything.’

‘I had a feeling that might be the case.’

Flick finished off the bread roll and started on another.

‘What I still don’t understand is how you first heard about him?’

‘Easy. I googled you.’ Flick shrugged. ‘When I heard the gossip in the pub, I looked you up. It’s the journalist in me, I’m afraid. That’s how it all started. I saw a photo of you at an exhibition you held at the gallery. He was standing next to you.’

‘Oh, yes . . .’ Maggie trailed off, remembering. ‘That would’ve been when we hosted an exhibition for a successful local artist. It got quite a lot of press.’

‘The caption mentioned you and your fiancé and gave me his name. And the rest, as they say, is social media.’

Maggie’s face fell as she thought back. ‘I haven’t looked at his social media since . . . well, since after he disappeared. I did at first . . . Drove myself crazy with the constant scrolling, hoping to find out where he was and what had happened to him, until finally I deleted the apps from my phone.’

‘I’ve done that before,’ nodded Flick. ‘I think everyone does it with their exes, don’t they?’

‘Really?’

‘Trust me, you don’t need to have dated a romance fraudster to want to know what your ex is up to,’ said Flick, wryly.

Maggie smiled, despite herself.

‘Thing is, I came to realize I didn’t want to see what he was doing. I just wanted to erase him. To delete him. Like you do when you remove all the website data from your laptop.’

‘Clear your history.’

‘Exactly. Only, it’s not so easy in real life.’

‘I just put everyone on mute,’ confessed Flick.

‘Does that work?’

‘Kinda. Though to be honest, you end up putting so many people on mute, you’d be better off deleting the app from your phone, but of course no one can as we’re all addicted.’ She took the final piece of bread from the basket. ‘You’re lucky. You didn’t have social media when you grew up.’

‘We had phones stuck on walls in kitchens and had to conduct every conversation under the watchful eyes and ears of our parents,’ countered Maggie.

Flick grimaced.

‘And with a father who kept yelling, “What are you talking about? You were just with them the whole day at school!”’

‘Actually, maybe social media is better.’

They both laughed.

‘Well, to be honest, you probably wouldn’t have found him as he’s got several accounts with different names,’ said Flick, her face falling serious.

‘How do you know?’

‘I did a deep dive into his social media. He seems to have multiple aliases and accounts if you cross-reference.’

Opening various apps on her phone, she waved her screen towards Maggie to show her, but Maggie immediately shrank back.