All the way home from the cemetery, Connor throws glances over his shoulder as he runs, but he doesn’t think he is being followed.
He’s paranoid and that won’t change until Ryan is found.
Where is he? Could he have run away too, gone to find Fergus?
His house is empty. A mess. The table is still on the floor, he can see one of the legs is broken. The lilies have been cleared up but there are still fragments of the green vase that smashed. On the wall, a streak of Connor’s blood. Mum must have been so frightened when she saw it, still believing Tyler to be missing, Ryan having not yet been located. He knows she is out looking for him. She has never been one to sit around and wait; impatient and fiercely protective, she wouldn’t have left finding him to the police. Dad isn’t here either and Connor wonders if they are together.
In the kitchen are mugs half-full of tea, coffee. Too many mugs for his parents. Perhaps the police were drinking from them when the news came in that he had been found.
Connor runs up the stairs and pushes open the door to Kieron’s room. His duvet is smooth, pillows plumped. He can’t have been back here since his hospital visit.
Back in the kitchen, Connor picks up his mobile from the worktop. Its screen is broken but it is still switched on. He calls his mum. His dad. Both numbers go directly to voicemail. He leaves a message that he is okay. That he is at home.
He opens his Find My Friends app that his parents made him install. He sees where Dad is and is puzzled but it isn’t far away. He can run there in ten minutes.
As he’s leaving, he remembers PC Leighton’s scathing ‘Didn’t you leave a note?’ and so he scribbles his destination on the back of the shopping list and then he slips out of the front door. Eyes scanning for Julie.
Fear pushes his walk to a jog, to a run.
He can’t wait until he’s back home again with his parents and Kieron.
Until they’re all safe.