There wasn’t much Izzy could add, other than offering a smile and a vague suggestion about meeting up after work one evening. Jessica knew the constable had enough on her plate considering the pregnancy, while her own problems weren’t isolated to work either, with the tension she was feeling around Caroline. Altogether, she wasn’t having a good time of it – and that was before she had fallen over in the street.

17

Lloyd Corless was beginning to think that watching whatever he wanted on television and playing limitless PlayStation games was actually pretty boring. The strange thing was that, if someone had said to him a few weeks ago he would be able to spend all his time watching and playing, he would have been pleased. Actually doing it was a very different matter. The truth was, he missed his mum and he missed Marcus. If they came through the hatch that led into the attic, he might even admit that to them.

The hatch was something of a mystery. He had tried to pull it up from the inside but couldn’t get his fingers into the cracks around the wooden board that blocked the attic from whatever was below it. Once he had managed to squeeze two of his fingers underneath but it was really heavy, as if something was weighing it down to prevent it being pulled upwards.

A couple of times a day he would hear a metal ladder underneath being moved around. Usually it would be because food was arriving but, once or twice, it seemed like the person simply wanted to talk to him, asking if there was anything that would make him happier.

Lloyd couldn’t think of anything other than to see his mum and Marcus but the person got angry whenever he said that, saying his mother was too ill in hospital to see him and that he would have to get used to it. He asked for his phone back but that wasn’t going to happen, either.

He couldn’t work out what was going on. As long as it didn’t involve either his mum or Marcus, he was being offered anything he wanted. Lloyd had asked about his dad but the other person didn’t really answer, then the hatch would be closed again and he would be left to play for as long as he wanted.

Lloyd did try to play but he could never really focus. Instead, he spent hours inspecting the room, wondering if there was another door or something he had missed. He was fascinated with the low parts of the ceiling he could reach. He had never touched a ceiling before as he was too short. He found himself walking in circles, running his hand along the full distance of the lower part of the roof. He also made his bed every day. It was something his mum kept on to him about when he was at home but he rarely listened. Without her, it was something he did almost to show that he could. If she did appear through the hatch one day, he wanted her to smile and be pleased with him, not angry because his bed was a mess.

The biggest thing he didn’t like was having to use the toilet in the corner. There was nothing wrong with it specifically – it was just like the one they had at home – but it felt wrong to sit on it when the rest of the room was so normal, whether there was anyone else around or not.

Lloyd was in the middle of walking a lap of the room when he heard the now-familiar sound of the metal ladder clanging from underneath. The hatch lifted a small amount and Lloyd could see the person’s eyes peering around the room looking for him. It was something that happened every time. Once, Lloyd had been standing quite close but he was told to go and sit on the bed before it would be opened any further. They locked eyes and Lloyd backed away towards the bed as the hatch opened fully and a plate of food was passed into the room.

‘How are you today, Lloyd?’ he was asked.

‘I’m all right,’ the boy mumbled quietly.

‘Here’s some food for you. Sausages, fried potatoes and beans.’

Lloyd had eaten baked beans a few days previously. They hadn’t tasted quite right but, with nothing else on offer, he had finished them anyway.

‘I’m just going to leave the plate here,’ the person added. ‘I’ll be back later to pick everything up.’

Lloyd wasn’t in the mood to give a proper answer, mumbling something as the person exited back through the hole, lowering the wooden cover in place. He moved quickly across the room and tried to get his fingers underneath it. He had seen some sort of hook on the wood and figured the person was hanging something heavy from it when they left, stopping him lifting it. He desperately tried to squeeze his fingers into the small gap but could not manage it.

Turning around, Lloyd looked at the plate of food as steam gently rose. He had figured out a day or so ago that the reason he was feeling so tired was because something was being added into either his food or his drink. He had seen a television programme once where a tiger’s food had something added to it that made the animal go to sleep.

He had been left a large bottle of fizzy drink and some plastic cups a few days ago. If whatever was making him tired wasn’t in that bottle, it was either in the ketchup he had eaten previously or the sauce that went with the baked beans. Lloyd didn’t know what to do. He knew from school that you had to eat and drink so he didn’t have much option. He tried to drink as little of the liquid as he could and left most of the baked beans, scraping off the sauce from the rest of his food. He was beginning to think his mother wasn’t in hospital at all. Maybe the person who had taken him had done something to her? Maybe they had Marcus too? The only time he had seen the person unhappy was when he had made some noise by banging on the walls. Lloyd knew he had to get out but with the window so high and the hatch weighed down, it wouldn’t be easy.

As he finished scraping sauce from the sausage and ate it, he thought that, if he could stop himself from feeling so tired all the time, he might be able to think of a way out.

18

Jessica stood solemnly, listening to the voice speaking from the front of the church. She wasn’t taking in the words but whatever was being said sounded appropriately sincere. She was one of the officers representing the force at Isaac Hutchings’s funeral. It had taken time for the body to be released due to the post mortem and further tests but with everything now complete and suffocation confirmed as the cause of death, the family were finally allowed some closure.

Kayla was standing at the front with her husband Mike and their daughter Jenny. It was the first time Jessica had seen Isaac’s father. While Kayla had thanked the officers for coming, he had ignored them, refusing to shake hands. Jessica didn’t blame him. Even outsiders could see they had achieved very little in trying to find who had taken and killed their son. Jessica watched Jenny cling onto her father throughout the ceremony, refusing to let him go. It was as if each was a comfort blanket for the other. Even from the very brief greeting at the start, it was clear there was a lot of tension between husband and wife. Jessica remembered Kayla telling her Mike blamed her for not collecting Isaac from school. She wondered if it would ever be reconciled.

The end of the ceremony was as awkward as the initial greeting. Before everyone headed off for the wake, Kayla approached Jessica, Reynolds and Cole to thank them again for being there. Mike and Jenny were standing awkwardly, close to one of the cars that were carrying family members. He eyeballed the officers as if daring one of them to speak to him.

Sensing the unease, Kayla spoke quietly to Jessica in the churchyard. ‘Don’t worry about him,’ she said. ‘He’s angry with everyone at the moment, me especially.’