Sounds like she had a pretty good support network. Although it’s easy enough to type a few helpful lines on social media. Much harder to actually follow through and do something practical. I had the same thing after Holly was taken – people offering to help, but not actually doing anything practical. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to know people were thinking of me, and everyone has their own problems, but true crises really show you who your friends are. It must have been hellish for Kate to have her husband found guilty of a crime and carted off to prison. Not that I can stretch to any sympathy right now.

I open up Kate’s friends list to find Shaun. Maybe his page will have more information about what went on. Kate has over a hundred friends, so I start paging down the list, but none of them is Shaun. Maybe he’s not the social-media type. Or maybe he removed himself after he was sentenced. Perhaps he did something so bad that he was harassed online. I need to curb my mind jumping off on wild tangents, but it’s hard not to try to connect the dots. After finding out about his prison stay, anything is possible where the Morrises are concerned.

I type his name into Facebook’s search bar, but there are too many Shaun Morrises to wade through and after several minutes of trawling, I give up – none of them looks or sounds like the Shaun I’m searching for. I try Google next, typing in Shaun’s name in the hope that a news story involving him might show up. Once again, there are plenty of Shaun Morrises – sportsmen, artists, musicians and more – but no one that sounds like the Shaun I’m looking for. I get to page ten of the search results and finally stop looking.

I sling my phone onto the passenger seat in frustration, wondering what my next move should be. I’m still too apprehensive to contact the police. They made such a cock-up of the initial abduction investigation that I’ve lost all trust in them. I don’t want them to tip off the Morrises before I’ve found concrete evidence, in case they do a runner with Holly. No. I’ll have to find out what happened some other way. But quite how I do that is another matter…

16

Another morning, another school run, but whereas I usually go about my life with an easy confidence, these days it all feels so different. I have this constant anxiety in my belly and a heavy-as-lead weight in my head. Sometimes I can go for a few minutes without remembering why I feel so odd, but then it all comes rushing back and I get this floundering sensation where I’m not sure whether I’m sad, angry or scared.