We were inundated with offers of hope from psychics after Billy first disappeared. I warily welcomed them into my kitchen and sobbed and sobbed as they consulted their cards or their runes or their stones or simply stood in the middle of the room with their eyes closed and told me how in tune they were with my distress and how the spirits would lead us to Billy. They told me that he was alive and well and living in a squat in Milton Keynes. They told me he was trapped in an underground cave in North Wales or held in a cellar against his will. They said he was in deep water, in the earth, across the sea. Alive. Dead. Alive. Dead. Hope. Despair. Hope. Despair.

I went from psychic to psychic, desperately hoping that this time we’d find one that wasn’t a fraud. I spent half the money we’d saved over the course of our twenty-year marriage paying for Jake to go to Wales, Milton Keynes and Dover to look for his brother. I went to seances. Dozens of them. Mark refused to come with me so I went with Liz or Mum instead. I was convinced that the next seance would be the one that would reveal Billy’s whereabouts. And then a psychic told me that Billy had committed suicide. ‘Why didn’t you save me, Mummy?’ he wailed in the voice of a much younger child. ‘You could have saved me, Mummy.’ I stopped going after that.

‘Okay. All right.’ I hear rustling as Mum shoves the piece of paper back into her bag. ‘I understand. I don’t mean to clutch at straws but it’s been a while since we’ve had an email through the website. It’s gone very quiet on the Facebook page too.’

I start at the sound of tyres on gravel. Mark’s Ford Focus is pulling up outside.

‘It’s okay, Mum. I know you’re trying to help and I’m sorry if I snapped. It’s been a tough day today, you know?’

‘Is there anything me and your dad can do?’

‘You’re doing so much already. I couldn’t get through this without you, you know that, don’t you?’

‘We do, bab. We just wish that none of this had ever happened.’

‘I know,’ I say as the car draws to a halt and the engine noise dies. ‘Can I give you a ring back tomorrow, Mum? Have a longer chat?’

‘Of course you can.’

‘I love you, Mum. Dad too.’

‘Speak soon, love. Take it steady.’

As I press the end-call button, Mark walks through the door, his briefcase in one hand, his jacket thrown over his shoulder and the neck of his shirt undone.

‘Everything okay? I saw you on the phone from the driveway—’ His gaze flickers towards the kitchen table, and the photo album sitting on top of it. ‘What’s that?’