‘Ugh, smells shitty in here,’ said Rowan, going over to a small kitchen area and lifting the lid on a bin. She pulled out a bin bag. Flies emerged from it in a small cloud. Swearing to herself, she tied a knot in it and then slung it out into the corridor.

Irene looked around the room. There was an unmade bed with greying sheets swirled on the top, and a cheap, MDF bedside table holding a clock radio and a glass of water with dust on the top. The only other furniture was a small television set on a crate in the corner, and a white wooden wardrobe of the sort a child might have. One of those multi-plug, circular extension devices sat in an awkward place on the floor, and several cables trailed dangerously into it.

Irene opened the wardrobe and looked at the clothes stuffed in there; polo shorts she recognized and several hanging pairs of the light-coloured chinos her son favoured.

It looked like such a small life, contained in these grubby walls, and sadness clutched at Irene’s throat. For the first time she was glad that Michael had been liaising with this Rowan woman. It was too much to bear to think about him being alone in this dump, with no comforts at all.

‘I can’t see anything that helpful, can you?’ said Rowan now and Irene mumbled a response. ‘He’s obviously taken his laptop with him.’ She paused before continuing. ‘Why don’t you have a mooch about and I’ll tidy up a bit,’ she said, ‘make it nice for when he gets back, eh?’

Irene, touched by the kindness of this, gave Rowan a small, grateful smile before beginning to look around the room. There were a couple of receipts on the bedside table, next to a scrunched-up tissue.

Irene picked up the receipts. One was from a café in a place called Casterbourne. Billy Joe’s. Michael had had a tuna sandwich and a coffee in there. Another was from a newsagent with the address of The Old Wall, Casterbourne, for items that came to three pounds seventy-five. The final one was a cash point receipt, showing that he had withdrawn fifty pounds from an ATM.

‘What you got there?’ said Rowan, suddenly at her shoulder. Irene could hear her heavy breathing. She showed her the receipts and Rowan took them from her fingers.

‘I know where that is,’ she said. ‘It’s in Kent. My friend goes to the Lathebridge book festival sometimes, which isn’t all that far from there. She AirBnBs in Casterbourne because it’s cheaper.’

‘Did my son ever mention that place to you?’ said Irene.