‘Can it be connected, Steve? We can’t speculate too much. The other boy involved must be terrified that two of his friends are missing.’

‘Another tweet from @cb247drive: “2 down, 1 to go”. That sounds ominous.’

‘It does. But let’s not forget that although they are seventeen, they are children so show some respect.’

Aidan snaps off the radio. He hopes Lucy isn’t listening. When he arrives home, it’s a relief to find her with both boys on the sofa, watching one of the Batman movies but if people are gossiping, how long can he shield his wife and sons from the damage idle tongues can cause?

He kisses the top of Lucy’s head. Her face is grey. She looks exhausted. Her top is on inside out.

‘Hey.’ He gently tugs at the label on the outside. ‘I hope you haven’t been out like this?’

‘Oh.’ She looks confused. ‘I was in a rush to get changed. I got blood on my other top.’

‘Blood?’

‘I dropped a glass putting it in the dishwasher and cut my finger.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes,’ she says, but he can see she isn’t. He had hoped she’d relax once Kieron came home but then they didn’t know the results of his latest liver function test.

They didn’t know about Ryan.

Every time Ryan pops into his head there’s a tightening of his chest. He’s practically grown up in this house, in this family. Aidan recalls the time the boys were wrestling in the garden and Ryan lost a tooth. He’d come running into the kitchen to show Aidan. It was Aidan who had helped him wrap it in tissue and pop it under the pillow on the bottom bunk in Connor’s room. It was Aidan who slipped into the room when the boys were fast asleep, replacing the tooth with a shiny pound coin.

However distressed he feels, it must be a million times worse for Melissa, and Fergus. Had it not been for Tyler also going missing, the obvious explanation is that Fergus has taken Ryan, but if that was the case Ryan would have been in touch with Mel, with Connor.

He’d tried to call Fergus again today, left another voicemail. It didn’t seem right to mention Ryan over text but he had little choice.

I’m so sorry about Ryan, he had sent. He didn’t get a reply, he wasn’t really expecting one, but this time he could see that Fergus had opened the message. That had to be a good sign, didn’t it?