Mitch stalked past, focused on nothing but the scene, recording details on his iPhone.

‘Are you going to run shifts?’ asked Chandler.

‘Run what?’ scowled Mitch, frustrated at being interrupted.

‘Run us in shifts, to keep going through the night.’

Mitch paused. ‘No. My team can take it. You can head home.’

‘You really that pig-headed?’

‘Go home, Sergeant. Get some rest. You’ve had a long day.’

With that Mitch walked away. Chandler had been given the brush-off. He considered staying on anyway to help retrieve what they could from the ruin but an evening with his kids and a warm bed was better than a cold night up here trawling through the debris. Let these arseholes do it. Even if they managed to find something to charge one of the suspects, all Mitch was going to be able to charge them with was kidnapping, maybe attempted murder at a stretch. Nothing more. Not until they located the graves. And that was work for a new day and fresh daylight.

As he passed the yellow glare of the lamps, Chandler watched Flo fish something from the wreckage. A piece of metal, charred but still in one piece, unmistakably the figure of Christ, free from the wooden cross that once held him, arms spread out, a reminder to Chandler that both suspects had mentioned a cross in their statements and that waiting at home, was a young girl nervous about her First Confession. Suddenly, he couldn’t wait to get back home to see her.

First though he dropped by the now eerily empty station. Only Tanya and Nick were on duty, Tanya completing paperwork and Nick drumming a solo on the front desk. Both reported the all-quiet from the cells, their prisoners coming to terms with the fact that there was no point complaining now, they were stuck there for the night.

The brief check-in completed, Chandler drove home and was disappointed to find that the kids were already in bed. It was a disappointment shared by his mum – at him for not coming home earlier.

She met him at the door, her blonde hair striated with grey, falling long and straight back over her shoulders, perfectly set despite the late hour. She was a Wilbrook girl through and through, her humour as dry as the land she’d grown up on.

‘I’ll go in and see them,’ said Chandler.

She stood in the way, arms out like the metal Jesus rescued from the fire. ‘No, don’t wake them,’ she said, her voice squeaked but assertive.

‘I won’t.’

‘They were angry with you. For not coming home.’

This only made Chandler want to see them more. ‘I was held up. There was nothing I could do about it.’

‘Caroline, stop it.’ His dad’s voice floated in from the living room, the voice of calm. ‘The boy not being here isn’t the reason they were angry.’