“You’ve both done so much to keep Susan in the public’s mind, to keep the investigation alive.”

Alive, fuck.

Neither Mr or Mrs Ridyard spoke.

“And I know you must have felt…”

“Felt?” said Mrs Ridyard.

“Feel.”

“I’m sorry, but you have no idea how we feel.” Mrs Ridyard was shaking her head, her mouth still moving after the words had gone, tears falling fast.

Mr Ridyard looked across the room at me, his eyes full of apologies and shame. “We were doing so much better until this, weren’t we?”

No-one answered him.

I looked out of the window across the road at the new houses with their lights still on at lunchtime.

“She could be home by now,” said Mrs Ridyard softly, rubbing the tears into her skirt.

I stood up. “I’m sorry. I’ve taken up enough of your time.”

“I’m sorry,” said Mr Ridyard, walking me out to the door. “We were doing so well. Really we were. It’s just brought it all back, this Morley thing.”

At the door I turned and said, “I’m sorry but, reading through the papers and my notes, the police don’t seem to have had any real leads. I was wondering if there was anything more you felt they could have done?”

“Anything more?” said Mr Ridyard, almost smiling.

“Any lead that…”

“They sat in this house for two weeks, George Oldman and his men, using the phone.”

“And there was nothing…”

“A white van, that’s all they bloody went on about.”

“A white van?”

“How, if they could find this white van, they’d find Susan.”

“And they never paid the bill.” Mrs Ridyard, her face red, was standing at the far end of the hall. “Phone almost got cut off.”

At the top of the stairs, I could see the heads of the other two children peering over the banister.

“Thank you,” I said, shaking Mr Ridyard’s hand.

“Thank you, Mr Dunford.”

I got into the Viva thinking, Jesus fucking Christ.