Chapters (67)
- Cover
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
‘I’m sorry we had to make that public but we had no other way to find out about the young man. It is a distressing photo, I know. We made sure that the paper printed it on the inside pages and that parts of it were blurred. So, you didn’t think straight away that it was your brother?’
‘No, because the face . . . well, it wasn’t very clear or how he really was – of course it wasn’t, but it’s not like you expect anyone to look, is it?’
‘No.’
‘But I kept returning to it, and anyway, Liam’s always in the back of my mind. I phoned Becky, my sister, she’d seen it on her phone, only she didn’t want to even go there, she scrolled down from it. But then she was like me, she went back and she just knew. When I rang her she said that. “It’s Liam.”'
‘Tell me about him. Was the time you went to your mother’s house when he was there the last time you saw him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know if they’d been expecting him?’
‘Oh no, I didn’t have to ask, they wouldn’t have been, they’d given up on him. He just turned up sometimes. That’s how it’s been with him for over a year. He’d show up and then disappear again, none of us’d set eyes on him or heard anything for weeks.’
‘May I have his full name, please?’
‘Liam Joseph Payne.’
‘His age?’
‘Twenty-two. He was twenty-two on Christmas Day.’ Her face clouded.
‘Did he have a job?’
‘Ha, yes, well – he actually trained as a mechanic at Kinnocks, got a paid-for apprenticeship, he was very lucky and he did all right, they were pleased with him, they get people onto proper career paths there if they work hard, it’s a good firm, and Liam did work, he was really keen, talked about it non-stop at the beginning.’
‘How long was he there?’
‘Getting on for three years. And then he just upped and left. ' She snapped her fingers. ‘Mum was furious with him, only he said he was bored, he wanted to be more his own boss, wanted to branch out, he had this mate with his own garage, bloke who restored old cars and steam engines, if you believe it, he did them up, got them working and sold them for a fortune. They were going into partnership. So he said.’
‘And did he?’