Charlie seemed to relax a little once his uncle left, something Mark noted. It had been almost imperceptible, but he had noticed the lad’s shoulders lose a little tension. But Mark still wasn’t sure if he was reading into things that weren’t there. He’d tried to engage Charlie in conversation again, but had seen all his attempts swatted back at him.

‘I’m going upstairs,’ Charlie mumbled, pushing past Mark as he continued to stand half-in and half-out of the living room. Mark waited for Julie to protest, but she barely acknowledged him leaving. Stephanie was staring at the phone in her hand, her thumb resting on the screen and then scrolling down.

‘Have you been sharing the story around?’ Mark said, walking into the room. He placed his file of notes down on the windowsill for a few seconds, trying to make the next transition as easy as possible. He needed to go upstairs and look over Emily’s bedroom. ‘Don’t let yourself get bogged down in all that social media stuff.’

‘What else am I supposed to do?’ Stephanie replied, glancing up at him then returning her gaze back to the screen. ‘Her photo has been shared a few thousand times now. I’m just making sure nothing gets missed.’

‘I understand, but there are people checking into that sort of thing.’

‘Yeah, well, it doesn’t hurt to have another set of eyes on it as well, does it?’

Mark didn’t have an answer for her, so instead turned to Julie, who hadn’t reacted. She was watching the television in the corner of the room, a twenty-four-hour news channel playing quietly. It wouldn’t be long before Joanna Carter was named as the body found earlier, which would drive it home to this family that Emily was still out there. Still unfound.

‘All the time in the world to talk about some no-mark celeb, but nothing about my girl,’ Julie said, the words spat out of her mouth with more vehemence than Mark had been expecting. ‘You’d think they’d be at least a little interested.’

‘People go missing every day,’ Stephanie replied, before Mark had a chance to say anything. ‘They’d never talk about anything else if they just talked about all the young people who had disappeared.’

Julie shaped as if to turn on her daughter and say something, but she closed her mouth instead. Mark guessed what she was about to say.