Corrie was seeing or had arranged to meet up with a married/attached woman, possibly why he drove into Bury.
The woman's partner gets her phone and figures out what's been going on.
I am not convinced Corrie was waiting. I theorise that the woman's partner realises, from reading her messages that Corrie is in BSE that night. He messages Corrie pretending to be that woman and offers to either give him a lift back to base or a bed for the night.
Alternatively, Corrie had been hitting on the guys girlfriend in the club and the guy just happened to see Corrie later that evening and wanted to rough him up or worse.
The guy waits for/saw Corrie in the shadows of the Horseshoe, punches him and either accidentally or purposely kills him and then dumps his body in Thetford Forest or Moreton. The guy leaving the Horseshoe on foot is the attacker going to get his car to put Corrie in.
There will be no forensics in the Horseshoe as the weather has eliminated any traces. It wasn't a violent attack, one or two carefully placed punches can kill.
The picture message could be either the guy realising he doesn't know what Corrie looks like or wants to verify he has the right guy, so asks for a "picture message", continuing a conversation Corrie had previously with the woman about family, Corrie sends the picture of him & his brother so the guy has now confirmed who he's looking for.
Alternatively the picture message was sent after the woman was asleep and her partner saw it and it triggered him going to find Corrie.
The phone could have been put in the bin after Corrie was attacked in the Horseshoe, travelled with Corrie in the car or it was thrown out of the vehicle at some point.
Possibly as Amonet says, the woman picked Corrie up and then they went to her place, the husband/boyfriend walks in and kicks off at Corrie. However, this would require the wife/girlfriend to keep quiet all this time. However, how do we know that she is not also missing?! Alternatively, if she is a victim of domestic violence/manipulative partner, she may just be terrified...utterly, completely terrified.
Things have been deleted from Corries social media because the police/family are protecting her or she is missing too.
The police know this, they have possibly already interviewed the guy, he may have a record of violence or maybe they know who he is but have no positive visual identification. The car has gone, possibly scrapped at a yard, possibly burnt out somewhere. The police have no car as evidence, no body as evidence and on CCTV all they have is that car driving into the Horseshoe then back out again.
There isn't any proof or evidence of foul play so the police can't even upgrade the Missing Person status to Murder enquiry, which if they could, would unlock more doors & resources to them.
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