After fruitless hours ringing around Sophie’s friends again, hoping to find out the identity of the mysterious friend with whom Sophie might be staying, Justin headed to the hospital. He wouldn’t stay. There was no way to concentrate. He couldn’t possibly trust himself with people’s lives until he knew his daughter was safe. Whether he would still have a job then, Justin felt didn’t much matter without his family.

Picking up the results he’d come for, he went to the hospital restaurant, where he bought a coffee but didn’t drink it. A colleague spoke to him. He hardly heard her. Dragging his hands over his face, he sat motionless, staring out over the car park, watching people coming and going, attempting to digest this latest news, until his coffee went cold. Then, sucking in a long breath, he left, going straight from the hospital to room he was renting.

Weary with exhaustion, yet knowing sleep would elude him, he barely noticed the sparse furnishing as he dropped his keys onto the single chest of drawers. He’d stopped craving material things the day Sophie had disappeared and his marriage had disintegrated. Before that, when Luke had been cruelly snatched away from them, he’d begun to wonder how much one really needed in life. The fancy cars, flat-screen TVs, the latest in technology – they were just things, accumulated throughout a life. Stuff you couldn’t take with you when you ceased to exist. It was all meaningless without someone to share it with.

Justin didn’t miss those things. He didn’t need them. There was no point in living luxuriously any more. He wondered whether there would be any point in living at all if he didn’t find Sophie. Whatever the hell was going on with Radley, he knew Alicia felt the same: she was existing, rather than living, waiting and praying for news, for any shred of information that might lead them to her.

Refusing to entertain the thought that he might never find her; that she might choose never to contact him again, he pulled off his coat and dropped onto the bed. He should ring Alicia. He’d wanted to believe her – badly needed to – but how could he? How could he begin to believe anything she had to say when their whole life together had been a lie?

But would she really be carrying on with the charade if it was Radley she wanted to be with? Justin had considered that too, but had reached no conclusion. Part of him hated her for what she’d done, but part of him still loved her. It was pathetic, but there it was. He wanted to reach out to her. A couple of times he almost had, when he’d seen the tortured look in her eyes and felt her palpable pain, but he’d stopped himself. He couldn’t take any more hurt. There just wasn’t room inside him for any more.

He had to stay in touch, though. If he couldn’t say what he wanted to, ask the endless questions going around in his head, they needed to communicate about Sophie.

Retrieving his phone from his pocket and selecting Alicia’s number, his gaze strayed to the one thing he didn’t want to be without – a framed photograph of her with Luke and Sophie, which he kept on the bedside table. He felt like it had been taken eons ago, in another lifetime, when they were a family, happy and healthy, a smile dancing in Alicia’s dazzling cornflower blue eyes. Despite the pain she’d caused him, he hoped she would smile again one day. That she would have a life beyond the purgatory they were living in now.

‘Hi, Justin, it’s me,’ Jessica said, picking the call up. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Not great.’

‘I know.’ Jessica sighed sympathetically. ‘I honestly don’t know how you’re getting through each day.’

‘Willpower,’ Justin joked half-heartedly.

‘Yes, it’s a good job you’re a strong man, that’s all I can say,’ Jessica said dourly. ‘Some men would have walked away from it. Most men, in fact.’

‘I haven’t always been, Jess,’ Justin said, reminding her of the time he hadn’t been strong. Then, Alicia had had to be the strong one, while he’d learned how to feel normal again.

‘You’d lost your family,’ Jessica said softly. ‘To have discovered them the way you did… To have had to bury them, try to carry on, never knowing who had been responsible, why someone would commit such an atrocious act of violence…’

She stopped. Justin was relieved when she did, every desecration of his family inevitably searing itself again on his mind.

‘It’s wonder you didn’t break down completely. The fact that you got through that makes you strong,’ Jessica went on forcefully. ‘You shouldn’t be bottling your feelings up now, though, Justin, not when you’re going through the same heartbreak all over again. I know you’d probably feel a bit awkward about it, but if you do ever want to unburden, I’m here. Just because I’m Alicia’s sister, it doesn’t mean I can’t be a friend to you, too.’

Justin ran a hand over his neck. Knowing exactly what had gone on, Jessica was possibly the only person he could talk to, but he wasn’t about to do that. It wouldn’t be fair on Alicia – or Jessica, come to that. There was also the fact that he didn’t think he could talk about any of this without breaking down, and he was desperately trying not to do that.

‘I know. Thanks, Jess,’ he said, wanting her to know he appreciated the offer.

‘And if you don’t fancy unburdening, we could just get drunk instead,’ Jessica suggested.

Justin smiled wryly. He didn’t think that was such a good idea either. He doubted his problems would look much better at the bottom of a whisky glass.

‘Has he been in touch?’ he asked, bringing the conversation around to why he’d called. He should ask Alicia, and he would, but he’d taken to asking Jessica for information first, which didn’t make him feel great.

Jessica hesitated. ‘He texted her,’ she said, sounding reluctant. ‘Apparently, he’s going back to Dubai. He’s asked to meet with her. And now I’ve said enough. I’d hate Alicia to think I was going behind her back. You’d do better to ask her about the detail.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Justin assured her, already bracing himself. The fact was, he was scared. Terrified she would lie to him again. He had no idea what he would do, how he would react.

Whatever the future held for Alicia and him, he was hugely relieved Radley was scuttling off back to Dubai. He’d been shocked by the realisation he’d been an inch away from inflicting possibly fatal injuries on a man. Despite his assurances to DI Taylor, he wasn’t certain he would be able to control himself if he found himself in Radley’s company again.

‘Is she around?’ he asked, assuming from the tone of Jessica’s voice that Alicia must be out of earshot. And then he immediately felt pig-sick as he wondered where she was – and with whom.

‘She’s busy. That detective guy has just arrived.’

‘Taylor?’ Justin was surprised.

‘He said he was passing, so he decided to call in to check on Alicia,’ Jessica said. ‘I’ll get her to call you back as soon as she can.’

‘Cheers, Jess,’ Justin said, feeling wary. He wasn’t sure why Taylor had decided to pay Alicia a visit. It certainly wouldn’t be because ‘he was passing’, but it wouldn’t be to announce they’d suddenly decided Sophie was a high-profile case, that was for sure.