‘You don’t reckon it’s because of what we did? You know. The residential?’ Connor stares at the pavement, wishing he could drop his shame here along with the dog-ends and the empty crisp packets. Walk away from his guilt.

‘Don’t even.’ Ryan’s voice is sharp.

‘You haven’t noticed anyone following you? Watching you?’ Connor clamps the crowbar tighter in his hand.

‘What? No. Don’t be soft. No one has taken Tyler. No one else has gone missing.’

Yet.

‘But why hasn’t he been in touch?’ Again, Connor asks the impossible question. ‘He wouldn’t… he’d get in touch with us if he could.’

If.

Connor clenches the bar in his fingers harder until his wrists ache and his rising tears disappear.

‘I still think that tosser Liam has done something to him,’ Ryan says angrily. ‘Fuck knows what Tyler’s mum sees in him. He’s a bully.’

The boys had been to Tyler’s flat a couple of times to see if his mum had heard from him and on their last visit Liam had told them to piss off and chased them down the stairs. Connor had arrived home shaking with both anger and fear.

‘Liam might have hurt Tyler,’ he blurted out to his dad. Rather than dismissing him, Aidan rang the police and reported Connor’s suspicions. ‘We’ve already ruled him out of our inquiries,’ he was told but Aidan believed Connor. ‘It makes sense. Liam’s a nasty piece of work who wanted Tyler out of the way. He had the motive and the opportunity.’

The precinct is derelict. The council have turned most of the streetlights off and even the gangs of kids that hang out here in the daylight don’t come back at night. Just a few years ago this had been the centre of a thriving community. Mums would gather in the coffee shop, rocking prams back and forth with one hand, cappuccino in the other. There had been a selection of shops: a bookshop; a butcher’s; a fancy dress shop; one that sold crystals and homeopathic remedies. Connor always liked it when they walked past that one, the smell of incense drifting out, comforting. They never went inside though. Mum didn’t believe in alternative healthcare.

‘This board is loose.’ Ryan tugs at it with his fingers.

Connor slides the crowbar underneath the wood and lifts. He meets resistance and he pushes harder. It takes a few minutes before the board springs away from the empty windowpane. The next board is easier and soon there’s a big enough gap for Connor and Ryan to squeeze through, their feet crunching on broken glass as they step into the old fancy dress shop.

It’s the smell that hits them first.