When I return to my office, there’s an email with Dylan’s death certificate and the coroner’s report attached. The cause of death is cited as an overdose of antidepressants and I imagine Andrew Buckley did whatever it took to minimise the attention his son’s death must have drawn to him. While I’m reading, my phone buzzes. It’s Sergeant Collins.

‘Sarah?’

‘It’s James Hampton, Jo. He wants to talk.’

Niamh

Before we were friends, I learned about Hollie by watching her hand entwined with Dylan’s, her long hair tangled with his. Their world of sunshine and laughter that drew people to them, made you want to be like them – it was about much more than the two of them falling in love.

After he’d gone, Hollie had told me they were predestined. Like two blazing stars that collided, dazzling everyone they met. Dylan was a talented artist and Hollie wanted a stage career. With their shared unquenchable thirst for adventure, they had a brilliant future mapped out.

I couldn’t imagine them not being together – and I didn’t want to think about them leaving, how empty this house would be once they’d gone. Dylan and Hollie represented love, freedom, energy, hope. Once they’d left, there would be no light or laughter in this house. Instead it would be a cold, empty shell.

Chapter Thirty

Elise

On my first overnight stop since before Hollie went missing, I walk for hours through the streets of Marrakech, losing myself in new sights and sounds, stopping on an impulse at a market stall to pick out a beaded bracelet for Niamh, ridiculously touched when the old woman I buy it from presses a small stone into my hand. A gift.

On the flight home, I think about how long kindness has been missing in my life. It adds to my determination to break away from Andrew.

Back at home, as I look around the house, the familiar extravagantly furnished rooms suddenly feel like a prison. Needing to escape, I go upstairs and pull on running clothes. Within minutes, I’m outside.

The clouds that blocked out the sun when my flight landed this morning have burned off, leaving a clear azure sky. Reaching the main road, I break into a run, passing Ida Jones’s house and waving as I see her across the garden, her small frame bent over, busy weeding. I run faster then, spurred on by a desire to set change in motion. In my head starting to work out a plan; knowing the first thing I need to do is find a house.