Somebody’s shadow moves behind the frosted glass panel of the front door and, losing my nerve, I hesitate before ringing the bell. I take a couple of deep breaths and watch as the taxi driver who brought me here from Berkhamsted’s train station pulls away. I have to stick to the plan.

I release the tension building up inside me by flexing and unflexing my fingers like the hospital physio showed me last week after my plaster cast was removed. My wrist and forearm are still too stiff to turn a steering wheel, hence the train and taxi instead of driving myself. The headaches following the fall are becoming less frequent but one has appeared this morning that I’m struggling to shift.

When I told Debbie that I was going out to meet a friend for coffee, I was only partially lying. I hate not being honest with her after all she’s done for me but I couldn’t admit to her or Finn the truth of where I was really going, or they’d have tried to talk me out of it. They wouldn’t understand my necessity to be here, and to be honest, I’m not sure I do either. Instead of pushing the bell, I swipe to the photos folder on the phone in my hand and re-read the headlines of old articles I found on the Hemel Hempstead Gazette’s website. The image of the class photo is blurry and the print quality poor but readable. ‘Parents of missing boy make anniversary appeal’, reads one.

I steel myself. It’s now or never.

I brace myself as Lorna Holmes opens the front door. We haven’t seen each other for more than twelve years but she is well aware of our more recent shared link. She catches me off guard with a bear hug that belies her skinny appearance, almost winding me. I feel how bony her shoulders are as she pushes them into me.

‘Thank you for agreeing to come,’ she says, her gratitude genuine.

‘How are you?’ I ask, quickly aware of how pointless the question is.

‘Okay, considering.’

I take her in properly. Back when we shared the same media studies classes at the University of London, she was a mature student, quite a few years older than the rest of us, a larger-than-life party girl who wanted everyone’s attention with her skimpy outfits and outrageous antics. Today she’s conservatively dressed and her make-up is minimal. She’s always been a lot slimmer than me and I’m reminded of the rumours that she had an eating disorder, and I wonder if it contributed to her dropping out after the first year. Regardless, I find myself holding in my post-baby paunch.

Lorna beckons me into the hallway and takes my coat. The light catches her arms and I notice scarring on her wrists. I choose not to ask about them. ‘I used to read about you in Heat and OK! magazine,’ she recalls, and I feel my cheeks blush.

‘That seems like such a long time ago,’ I say. ‘As does uni. When we’d hang out, I had no idea you had a missing brother.’

‘I didn’t tell anyone. I wanted to be someone different from the person I was around here, not just the sister of the kid who disappeared. So I rebelled. I drank a lot and well, you know, the rest. I was more than aware of how quickly life can come and go and I wanted to make the most of mine. Only I took it too far and made myself ill.’ She doesn’t

go into specifics and she doesn’t need to. ‘When did you learn Frankie was my brother?’

‘The same day I messaged you on Facebook. And thank you for inviting me over. I wish that we could have met again in different circumstances.’

‘You have nothing to be sorry for,’ she replies. ‘It’s no surprise that Frankie’s passed. I wasn’t even born when he disappeared, and from everything my mum and dad told me about him, he’d never have run away. He was a real home bird.’

‘How are your parents dealing with the news?’

‘Okay, I guess. They’re looking forward to meeting you.’ ‘And me them.’

I’m not really; in fact I’m as nervous as hell. I follow Lorna along a corridor and into the kitchen. We pass a room where condolence cards cover a sideboard and dining room table. There are vases of flowers everywhere. She opens the kitchen door and the air is thick with cigarette smoke. Lorna introduces me to Pat and Frankie Snr, who rise from behind a kitchen table and embrace me every bit as tightly as their daughter did. The whites of Pat’s eyes are spotted with red as if she’s cried so hard that she has burst blood vessels. Her face is lined and some auburn flecks remain in her grey hair. There’s a yellow nicotine stain in the centre of Frankie Snr’s white moustache.

‘Thank you for finding our son,’ Pat begins, her voice brittle. You’re welcome doesn’t feel like an appropriate response. She beckons me to sit. ‘What . . . what was it like up there?’

‘In the attic?’

She nods. ‘I asked our family liaison officer, but she said it was best I didn’t see the photographs.’

‘I wasn’t there long,’ I say. ‘But it looked . . . for want of a better expression . . . peaceful.’ I recall how tidily and carefully arranged the suitcases were, one behind the other, forming a V-shape.

‘The police brought round photographs of his Cub Scout uniform for us to identify,’ Pat continues. ‘I’d forgotten how small they were. He was only a wee thing, smaller than his friends. I often wonder if that’s why he was taken from us, because he wasn’t strong enough to fight back.’

We sit quietly and I give them the time they need without interruption. I reflect again on why I agreed to Lorna’s invitation. I reach the conclusion that I’m here because witnessing those mummified remains, followed weeks later by their grainy faces in newspaper photographs, isn’t enough to make those children real to me. I need to find a way to humanise them; I need to meet the families who loved them, to see how pined for they’ve been all these years. Then perhaps I’ll understand how fortunate I am to have a living, breathing child of my own, and allow myself to love Sonny properly and not be frightened of how I or others might hurt him.

Frankie Snr removes a roll-up cigarette from a tobacco pouch and lights it. He takes a deep drag and chooses his words carefully. ‘You expect your son to be with you for the rest of your life. But when he’s taken away from you, it changes everything. All you once felt is replaced by fear and confusion and, above everything else, anger. Because the someone . . . the something . . . that stole him can’t see the boy that you knew inside and out. All they see is an object they want to destroy. And they have no right to do that, no right at all. I’m not a violent man but when they catch him, I will happily rip him apart with my own bare hands.’

I don’t doubt him for a minute.

‘Even when we took part in a TV appeal soon after he vanished, I knew in my heart that we’d lost him,’ adds Pat. ‘I couldn’t feel him inside me any more.’ She points to her heart. ‘I hoped it wouldn’t be long before they found his body, but the days spread into weeks and months and we never got the call. Eventually, we gave up hope of ever being able to say a proper goodbye.’ She places her hand

on my recently repaired wrist. The pressure she exerts to demonstrate her sincerity hurts but I don’t yank it away. ‘He was our life. Without him, the soul was torn from our family.’

Lorna inches back in her chair and I wonder what that’s like to hear, knowing that, even now, she will never be enough to complete her parents. Her childhood was stolen along with her brother’s; only, she was the one who had to carry on. She puts a kettle on the hob as Pat leafs through the pages of a family photo album, showing me faded pictures of Frankie taken up until a few weeks before he vanished. The pages at the back of the book have been left blank, and I realise that after Frankie vanished, they stopped taking photographs. There are none of Lorna.

Later, and when it feels like the right time to leave, I say my goodbyes and Lorna escorts me to the front door. We hug each other and promise to stay in touch. I mean it.

I need a little quiet time to clear my head so I make my way to the train station on foot, following a map on my phone. I text Debbie to see how Sonny is. She sends me a picture of him lying on the lawn, his feet kicking up in the air and smiling. Without warning, my eyes start brimming. A young boy waiting at a bus stop gives me a puzzled look so I lower my head and quicken my pace until I pass him.

This visit has helped me a lot, I think. Pat and Frankie Snr don’t have a second chance with their son like I do with mine. Being with them has made me understand just how much work I need to do to get out of this depression. I was raised by my parents to be independent and to solve my own problems, so I’m not used to asking for help. But I don’t think I can sort myself out on my own. This is too big for me to handle.

There’s just one more place I need to visit before I can draw a line under this terrible chapter in my life and be a better mum and wife.