She watched them load him into the ambulance. Fred had followed her into the garden. So many times he had stood where she was standing, watching paramedics load her into a van. It felt oddly familiar.

‘He’ll be OK,’ he said.

‘I don’t care. I just want to find those boys.’ She was calmer now. If Rave thought he was in danger, she didn’t doubt that Jeremy would go with him. Their disappearance finally made sense to her.

‘They’re going to want to search Jeremy’s room.’

‘If it helps.’

‘How you holding up, Mai?’ he asked.

She could feel his desperation to make some kind of meaningful connection with her but she just couldn’t give it to him. ‘What do you think?’ She walked to her car, leaving Fred alone on the grass, staring after her.

Fred

Fred sat in his car smoking a cigarette and waiting for Tom to leave the house. When he finally appeared he was talking on the phone and stalked the Murphys’ lawn, giving instructions. Eventually he got in beside Fred and rolled down the window.

‘Those things will kill you, Fred.’

‘Maybe so.’ Fred sniffed.

‘Well, the good news is that some kid spotted the boys on the Bohernabreena Road around half ten Sunday night.’

Fred exhaled. ‘They’re not in the tank.’

‘We can’t know for sure yet, but it’s looking unlikely.’

‘Thank God.’

‘Linda took a statement but I’m heading over to see the kid myself.’

Fred nodded. ‘I think there are some items missing from Rave’s room.’

‘Oh?’

‘I saw CDs but no player.’

‘He could have broken it or sold it.’

‘No toiletries, not even toothpaste, in that bathroom, and for a kid as clean as Rave that doesn’t make sense.’

Fred had walked around the small bathroom. It had smelt of bleach – the bottle, with a cloth and bathroom cleaner, was in a box beside a pale pink bath. He had opened the cabinet above the washbasin. It had contained nothing but an old shaving kit and rose-scented hand cream: the only things that suggested Rave had once had a mother and father living with him. Fred pictured Rave scrubbing the toilet, the bath, the washbasin and maybe even the lino on the floor. It had holes, revealing rotting wood beneath it. That bedroom and the bathroom were clearly Rave’s living quarters. Tom was right: if it was the kid’s bathroom, why was there nothing of his in it?