He rapped his knuckles on the door, stood back and waited a few seconds. He didn’t think it was likely that Barry Usher was going to be at work. Not with his knowledge of the type of people who lived in this area and what he knew about the bloke. He tried knocking again, harder this time. The wooden door rattled a little on its hinges. Another minute went by and he reached out to knock again, when the door behind him swung open with a creak that echoed around the small walkway.

‘He’s not in,’ a voice said, gruff and raspy, thick with years of smoking and drinking, Mark thought. He turned to see the woman it belonged to. ‘He’ll be in the pub by now.’

Mark smiled at the older woman, taking in her large stature and bent posture. She was propping herself up on a walking frame, staring him down. ‘I’m from Merseyside Police…’

‘That’s nice for you, but he’s still not in.’

‘Where does he drink these days?’

‘You’ll find him at the Peg,’ the woman said, already turning around to go back into the flat. ‘Do me a favour and tell him to pick me up a pint of milk on his way back. He’s a good lad. Don’t go nicking him or anything.’

Mark shaped to answer, but the door was already closing.

He pulled out his phone for directions once he was back at the car, the sat nav finding the right pub within a minute. It was no better than the block of flats he’d just left – a pub that was probably last booming twenty years ago.

Mark wondered how he would find the man, given he had no idea what he looked like. He pushed open the door to the pub, walking inside with his shoulders back and chest out, waiting for trouble as soon as he entered.

He needn’t have worried.

Inside, a fat barman sat precariously on a barstool staring at a quiet television in the corner. The only other sign of life was an older bloke, sitting a little further down the bar, a newspaper open in front of him. A pint of something dark next to his hand.

Mark made his way over towards the bar, feeling more overdressed than he ever had, in his suit and tie and black polished shoes. He didn’t belong there. The barman gave him a cursory glance up and down, then turned back to the television. Marked out within seconds, he thought.

‘Barry?’

‘Who wants to know?’ the man sitting at the bar said without turning around.

‘Detective Constable Mark Flynn. You got a minute?’

Barry Usher looked at him for the first time, then turned back to his paper. ‘I don’t know nothing about anything.’

‘I’m here about Emily. Your daughter.’