‘I understand your child is fine?’ Jessica asked.

Cameron nodded. ‘She slept through it all last night. We took her to the hospital this morning, just in case, but everything is fine.’

‘How long have you been using Oliver Gordon as a babysitter?’ Jessica asked.

‘Six or seven months? He would come over once a month or so and we would pop out for something to eat. It wasn’t even necessarily for us to have an evening away, more so that Lara could get used to being with other people and also, I suppose, to get Eleanor used to not being with her all the time.’

‘Why Oliver?’ Izzy asked, before adding: ‘I mean, why not a relative?’

Jessica wondered if the constable was thinking about her own child and how she had left Amber with her parents-in-law.

Cameron continued to tug nervously at his clothes. ‘No reason really. Ellie’s parents aren’t around any more and mine live quite a distance away. Oliver is the son of one of Ellie’s friends so we’ve known him a bit as he’s grown up. It was just one of those things.’

Izzy nodded, apparently satisfied.

‘Is it always Oliver that you use?’ Jessica asked.

Cameron responded with another nod and then continued, ‘We phoned his parents last night to see if he had gone home but obviously he hadn’t. That’s when they called you.’

‘And you found Oliver’s mobile phone?’

Cameron stood and walked around to the doorway to show the two officers exactly where it had been left on the floor, then took the device out of a drawer underneath the television and handed it across before sitting back down. Jessica put it in a plastic bag just in case but the fact it had already been picked up and handled meant it was unlikely they would be able to get anything useful from it.

‘I was really angry last night,’ Cameron said. ‘At first we thought he had just left and gone home. Then, when we called his parents, we realised he wasn’t there. They said to call his mobile but I had already found it here. Then they started panicking.’

‘Is he usually reliable?’ Jessica asked.

‘Always. I mean, he’s like most people that age; he’s a bit quiet but that’s just being a teenager, isn’t it? He gets here early and there have never been any problems in the past. Plus Lara always liked him. She can’t say his name properly and giggles about it. She calls him “Dolly”. We keep saying it’s “Ollie” but she can’t seem to say the word without putting a “D” at the front.’

Jessica already had the briefest details of Oliver’s past but he had no record of anything, other than being born and attending a private school just outside the city.

‘Have you spoken to his parents?’ Cameron added.

‘Officers have been there,’ Jessica replied. ‘We’re heading there next. We wanted to visit you first to establish exactly what happened. What was the house like when you got home?’

Cameron shook his head, as if not wanting to remember. ‘It’s hard to describe. It looked normal but it didn’t feel right. Have you ever walked into a room and thought, “Something’s gone on here”? It was like that. As soon as I got in the front door, I had this feeling.’

Jessica had an inkling of what he meant.

Cameron shivered, perhaps recalling the moment, before continuing: ‘After I saw Lara sleeping upstairs, I didn’t know what to think. I was angry, then worried. Then I thought maybe someone had broken in.’

‘Did you check to see if anything was missing?’

‘We went all around the house. All the obvious stuff is here: the televisions, our stereo, things like that. Then we checked the drawers in our bedroom to see if any of Ellie’s jewellery had gone. None of it is expensive anyway but there’s no reason for a burglar or someone else to know that. I can’t say for certain nothing’s missing but, if it is, we don’t know what’s gone.’

‘Did you check his phone when you found it?’

Cameron tugged at his eyebrow guiltily. ‘I . . .’

‘You’re not going to be in trouble if you did,’ Jessica assured him. She was hoping there might be an easy solution.

‘I had a look, that’s all, but I couldn’t even get to the keypad bit because it had this lock screen thing. I thought he might have called someone or something like that.’

Jessica knew their experts would be able to check but it did seem strange that Oliver had left his phone behind when leaving the house.

‘Does anyone else have a key for the property?’ she asked.

Cameron shook his head. ‘Just me and Ellie. We don’t even keep a spare with the neighbours or hidden in the garden. I guess that’s pretty stupid in some ways, if we ever were to lose ours. We’re not that friendly with the neighbours but would be able to call them in an emergency. It’s not that we don’t get on, we just don’t talk that much.’ He pointed to one side, then the other. ‘They moved in about six months ago, while they’ve been here for years. You wave to say hello but that’s about it.’

Jessica knew it was pretty much the same everywhere. After she had moved into her old flat, her father had told her during one of their almost-regular phone conversations to go and meet the neighbours. He had then told her off when she admitted two weeks later that she hadn’t bothered. ‘That’s why the country’s going to the dogs,’ he insisted. Jessica didn’t necessarily disagree but, dogs or not, she still couldn’t be bothered with saying hello to complete strangers.

After checking they had the correct details for all the timings, the officers said their goodbyes and indicated they would be in contact when they had news.

Back in the car, any awkwardness had disappeared. ‘What do you reckon?’ Izzy asked as Jessica drove.

Jessica began to speak then stopped herself. ‘You tell me. First day back, let’s see how much you’ve forgotten.’

Izzy laughed. ‘Well, I believe him for a start. He didn’t look shifty as such, just uncomfortable.’

‘They’ve probably chopped him up and buried him under the patio,’ Jessica replied, joking.

Izzy didn’t laugh. ‘Why send us? Why not uniform?’

‘I don’t know but I can guess it’s the usual reason – covering our arses. There’s no point in sending a Scene of Crime team because, as far as we can tell, no crime has taken place. Nothing’s been taken, the child is still there. On the surface, it’s just a teenager who has disappeared – and he’s not even been gone that long. The only problem is, if something major has happened and we hadn’t looked into this stuff now, we’d get huge stick in the future. If Oliver turns up tomorrow and he’s just stormed out after an argument with his girlfriend, then no harm done.’

‘Is that what you think has happened?’

Jessica didn’t speak for a moment, not because she didn’t know her own mind, simply because saying it out loud made it seem more real.

‘I think someone’s taken him.’

3

Jessica had no firm reasons for thinking someone had taken Oliver but had worked on enough cases, and interviewed enough people, to recognise the high likelihood that something bad had happened. Without knowing much about the teenager, she could guess his type simply because of who Cameron and Eleanor were. They weren’t the sort of people who would dump their daughter with anyone, which meant Oliver must at least appear to be conscientious and mature. Still, some people probably thought that about her, so that in itself didn’t prove much.

When she had been younger, she could vaguely remember the daughter of their old next-door neighbours coming to keep an eye on her every now and then. Usually, it involved the babysitter letting her stay up slightly later ‘as long as you don’t tell your mum and dad’ and then, presumably, the girl sitting downstairs watching television and drinking copious amounts of alcohol before hiding the evidence. Regardless of the small amount of work involved, it was still a position of trust and, while some parents might be happy to leave their children unsupervised or with someone unsuitable, the Sextons certainly did not fall into that category.