Alex got two streets away before pulling the car to the kerb and stopping just past a pedestrian crossing. She cut the engine dead and called Chloe.

‘Where are you now?’ she asked.

‘At the station. Syed and Jameel have conveniently gone AWOL. Both parents are saying they don’t know where they are. What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing. I mean, I don’t know yet.’

Alex’s thoughts were racing away from her, moving faster than she was able to keep up with. Two people: a man and a woman. Was that woman really a child? Could Keeley Coleman have been responsible for the boot mark that had been stamped on Doris Adams’s body, and the prolonged and vicious assault that Gary Peters had endured before his death? Children had been known to kill before, though such cases were rare. When they did occur, they left an aftermath that would be felt by families and communities for years.

She had met Keeley on a few occasions during her father’s trial. She had been eleven years old then – quiet and unassuming – and she had struck Alex as a girl who had fallen silent in the aftermath of Christian’s reign of terror over the family. To think that she was involved in any of this seemed madness, but the more Alex’s mind directed her to the idea, the more of an awful possibility it became.

‘Teenage boy has been reported missing,’ Chloe told her. ‘His nan said he didn’t come home last night.’

‘Where’s the grandmother now?’

‘At home. There are a couple of officers with her. The thing is, it’s Gavin Jones’s son.’

‘Send me the address,’ Alex said. ‘I’m on my way.’

---

Julie Morris was sitting on the sofa in her living room, a mug of untouched tea going cold on the carpet at her feet. Her younger grandson was curled up in a chair near the television, watching a cartoon and eating a chocolate biscuit. The liaison officer that had been assigned to the family following the news of Gavin’s death was also there. Officers had taken a statement from Julie, as well as a couple of recent photographs of her older grandson, Tyler.

‘He didn’t come home last night?’ Alex confirmed.

Julie shook her head. ‘And before anyone bloody asks me again, no, he’s never done anything like this before.’

‘Has Tyler had contact with Gavin recently?’

‘Yes, unfortunately. I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead and all that, but he’s been nothing but bad news from the start. I tried calling him this morning to see if Tyler was with him. There was no answer.’

Alex’s thoughts strayed again towards the Hassan brothers. Surely they weren’t involved in the disappearance of Gavin’s son too?

She glanced at Curtis, who seemed oblivious to everything going on around him. His mouth was smeared with chocolate. ‘Does Tyler know about his father?’

Julie shook her head. ‘He can’t do. Not unless he’s heard about it from someone else.’ She put her head in her hands.

‘When did you last see him?’ Alex asked, taking a photograph from one of the uniformed officers.

‘Yesterday lunchtime, before I went to work.’

‘Where do you work?’

‘The Royal Glam. I’m a nurse.’

Alex wondered whether Julie had come into contact with Sian Foster at the hospital, and if she knew Sian was involved with Gavin. ‘Must be tough going with the two boys to look after on your own.’

Julie shrugged. ‘We’re managing. Haven’t got much choice, have we? Look, I know there’s something wrong, okay. Tyler doesn’t just go off like this.’ She picked up a mobile phone from the end of the sofa and brandished it towards Alex like a weapon. ‘I can’t even bloody call him either.’

‘That’s his phone?’

Julie nodded and passed it to Alex. ‘He’s bloody useless with the thing. I’m always nagging him about it.’

‘You only contacted the police this morning?’ Alex asked, putting the mobile phone in her pocket. ‘Why was that? Why not call last night when he didn’t come home?’

Julie looked to the floor. ‘I stayed on late at work – they were short-staffed. I didn’t get back until gone midnight.’

‘But you checked on the boys then?’

Beneath the previous day’s make-up that she had been too tired to remove the night before, Julie’s face flushed. She spoke quickly, her words falling out and tripping over her obvious guilt. ‘I should have, all right – I know that now. But I was knackered and it was late … I didn’t want to disturb either of them.’

‘Who was looking after them while you were at work?’

Julie sagged. ‘I’m a shit grandmother, all right? There – is that better? I’m trying my best. If I don’t work, we lose this house, and if I do work, there’s no one to watch the boys. I can’t win either way, can I? I thought Tyler was grown up enough now to look after Curtis for a bit. I thought you were police, not the bloody social.’

‘I’m not here to judge, Julie. I’m just trying to build a picture.’

‘No? Well it sounds like that’s what you’re doing.’ Julie stood and went to the window, her back turned to Alex. ‘Why are we all just standing around talking, anyway?’

‘Are there any friends Tyler might have stayed with?’

Julie shook her head. ‘Only his girlfriend, and I can’t get hold of her either.’

‘What’s his girlfriend’s name?’

‘Keeley.’

Alex glanced at Curtis, who had got up from his chair and was now playing with a plastic toy car, ramming it repeatedly into the side of the TV unit. Each time it made contact with the glass panel, the boy made a sound like an explosion.

She looked down at the photograph that was still in her hand. A child’s face looked back at her.

‘Keeley Coleman?’

Julie turned sharply. ‘Yeah. You know her?’

Alex’s mind was running two steps ahead of her once again. A picture was beginning to fall into place: one far worse than any of them might have imagined. ‘How tall is Tyler?’

Julie looked exasperated. ‘What sort of question is that, for God’s sake? I don’t know, about five eight, five nine. He’s always towered over me.’

‘I need to see his bedroom.’

Julie glanced at the other officers before looking back angrily at Alex. ‘Why?’

Alex headed for the living room door. ‘You can show me or I can find it myself.’ She left the room and headed out into the hallway.

‘I don’t understand what’s going on,’ Julie said, following her towards the stairs. ‘How’s this supposed to help find him?’

Tyler’s bedroom was easy to find: there was a sticker with a toxic warning label stuck to the door and a sign that read ‘Danger – Keep Out’. Inside, dirty clothes lay strewn on the carpet and the single bed was unmade, the duvet in a pile at the end of the mattress. A TV and an Xbox games console sat on a chest of drawers at the end of the single bed.

Alex scanned the room, her eyes stopping at the wall above the head of the bed. A collection of posters formed a montage that covered the wallpaper that lay beneath. At its centre, there was a poster of four young men, all clad in leather jackets and posing against a brick wall. A series of dates was printed across the bottom.

Catfish and the Bottlemen, the poster read. UK Tour 2018.

Alex turned and left the room, not answering Julie when she asked where she was going. The other officers were still waiting in the hallway, one keeping an eye on Curtis, who was still playing in the living room.

Out on the pavement, she called Chloe. She reached into her pocket and took out Tyler’s mobile phone.

‘We need to find Tyler Morris as soon as possible.’

‘You think he’s in danger?’

Alex glanced at the phone gripped in her hand. ‘I think he is the danger.’