Eddie snatched the phone off her. ‘What’s up?’ he asked. When Stuart answered his question, Ed’s face paled within seconds.

‘I’m coming over right now. Keep the girl there,’ he insisted.

‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Gina asked him.

Eddie picked up his bunch of keys and ran to the front door. ‘I’ll explain later.’

Frankie spent the next twenty minutes firing question after question at Katie. She was now ninety-nine per cent sure that the girl was telling the truth, but she would never be totally convinced until she saw her children with her own eyes. Over the years, because she had thought Jed was dead, Frankie had tried to erase what he had done to her grandfather from her mind. Apart from Babs and DI Blyth, she had never told another living soul about her and Kerry’s discovery, but if Jed was still alive, perhaps she should have told her dad. If he ever found out that she knew, her dad would disown her, Frankie was sure of that.

‘Explain to my dad outside what’s happened, so I can talk to Katie alone for a minute,’ Frankie said, as she heard Ed’s car pull up outside.

‘I’d better go soon. I left the kids with my sister and she’ll be wondering where I’ve got to.’

‘You’d better leave your address and phone number, in case I need to contact you again. I’ll give you my number an’ all. How did you find out where I live, by the way?’

‘I’ve known roughly where you lived for a while. I only live in Basildon meself and I have a lot of mates round this way. One of my mates, Dawn, her son David goes to the same school as your Brett. Dawn don’t live anywhere posh like you, though. She lives in a tower block near the town centre. Anyway, I asked her to follow you home from the school so I could come and see you myself.’

Frankie had heard Aaron mention a boy called David. ‘So is David’s mum a traveller?’ she asked, paranoid. Her dad had moved her from Upney and bought the house in Brentwood just so Brett could go to a better school and mix with a better class of kid. Also, if this David’s mother was a traveller and Jed was still alive, she might tell him which school Brett attended and he might try and abduct him as well.

‘No, Dawn ain’t a traveller. Apart from my own family, I don’t mix with many travellers. Most of my mates are gorjer girls.’