Then the McConnells were being interviewed in their living room, a room very like this one: straight out of Home and Garden magazine, all that creamy, expensive furniture, a huge family portrait hanging behind the sofa.

‘I just can’t express how I feel,’ Zoe McConnell said. Her eyes met the camera lens. ‘I want to say an enormous thank you to the police for finding him for us, and—’ Her voice broke with emotion, and it sounded like she was there in the room with them – until Patrick realized that the crying noises were coming not from Zoe on the TV, but from Helen.

She sobbed, her entire body trembling with distress, her fingers clawing at the upholstery, grabbing a cushion and pulling it to her, hugging it against her belly. A terrible keening noise came from her and she stamped her foot on the carpet, her face pink and streaming with tears.

‘Frankie, oh Frankie,’ she cried, a tsunami of grief making her body buck. She kept uttering her daughter’s name over and over. Sean tried to take hold of her but she shrank away and he hovered at the edge of her, stricken and useless.

‘We’re never going to find her.’ Her words trembled in her throat. ‘She’s gone, gone forever.’ She sounded like someone was shaking her.

She lifted her face and looked directly at Patrick. Behind him, the McConnells continued with their public display of joy. Helen pointed a finger and said, ‘You said you’d find her. You’ve failed us. You’ve failed Frankie.’

‘Helen, that’s not fair,’ Sean said weakly.

‘Fuck you,’ Helen spat.

Patrick stood there and took it. Her words made him go cold, but he couldn’t blame her.

‘We will find her,’ he said. Not adding or what happened to her.

A fresh wave of tears broke and, finally, she let her husband pull her into an embrace. He stroked her hair and whispered to her as she continued to cry, clutching the back of his badly buttoned shirt.

Patrick had never felt so awkward.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ he said.

While he waited for the kettle to boil, his phone rang. It was Carmella.

‘Guess what,’ she said.

‘Larry’s done a runner?’

‘Alice too, eh? I got there and his mum was being all “leave my poor little boy alone” on the doorstep for about five minutes until I eventually persuaded her to let me in. Larry’s nowhere to be seen. His mum admitted she thought he was just having a lie-in, but she hadn’t actually clapped eyes on him since last night. She said his backpack was gone, along with a toy tiger he’s had since he was little.’

‘Bad man, huh?’

‘I know, right? Bless. She said it never leaves his pillow. The last time he took it out was on a camping trip with the Scouts when he was twelve.’