THEO HAS BEEN WATCHING HIS DAD CLOSELY SINCE HE stumbled upon that newspaper article last week, finding excuses to pop over to the soulless mansion in between shifts, plucking up the courage to broach the subject of the couple in Wiltshire. His dad has never been open with Theo at the best of times, but lately every time Theo turns up at the house his dad acts as though he’s an intruder, questioning him on why he’s come over. Just once Theo would like his dad to look even a little bit pleased to see him. But he’s promised Jen he’d ask him. Jen, who wouldn’t be afraid to ask her warm, open family anything.

So here he is again, Tuesday lunchtime, before he starts at the restaurant. Why is it so bloody hard to broach the subject with his father? He’s a grown man. But when he’s around him he feels like that unsure teenager again, obeying his mother’s wishes to keep his mouth shut, to do what his father says so as not to upset him. To keep things on an even keel like she always did. To stop his father getting angry.

‘I don’t need any more food,’ his dad snaps, when Theo walks into the kitchen with his trusty cool-bag filled with a chicken curry and a cottage pie. ‘I’ve got a freezer full of them. I eat at the golf club most nights anyway.’

Honestly, Theo doesn’t know why he fucking bothers. God, he’d love to tell his father where to go. But even though his mum has been dead for fourteen years he can’t bring himself to do it. She’d be disappointed in him, he knows it.

‘Actually,’ says Theo, dumping the bag on the table. ‘I came here to ask you something.’ His heart pounds beneath his T-shirt. He imagines Jen behind him, encouraging him to continue.

‘What’s that, then?’ His father has one of his golf clubs in his hand and is buffing the end of it with a rag. He’d tried to teach Theo golf once, when he was thirteen. He bought him a set of his own irons and taught him the name of each one. Theo had hated every minute of it, but kept it up for more than a year to please him. But when his father realized Theo was never going to be any good, he lost interest in teaching him.

Theo takes a deep breath. ‘Last week when I came over I found a newspaper article on your desk. It was about this couple from Wiltshire who were doing some kind of renovations and found two skeletons in their garden. You’d underlined two women’s names and then there were the words, “Find Her”.’