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“By the way,” Murray said after a while, “I called ahead to the Whittons’ this morning.”

Harrison glanced across at her, pulse ticking unpleasantly upward at the flippancy of the surname.

“Let them know formally it wasn’t Robyn.”

Relief moved through him so sharply it almost hurt. “Right.” He adjusted his grip on the wheel. “How did they take it?”

Murray looked out of the window. “How you’d expect. Mum cried. Father barely said a word. I didn’t speak to Jake directly, but I imagine they’ll pass it on.”

Harrison swallowed once. “I’m sure they will. Thanks for taking that initiative.”

“Hard to know whether news like that helps or hurts.”

Harrison stared ahead at the road unfurling grey beneath the tyres. “Hm.”

“All it really tells them is it isn’t over.”

Harrison thought of Jake shaking in his arms. “Yeah.” He swallowed. “I suppose it does.”

Thankfully Murray seemed to sense he needed dragging out of his own head for a while. So for the rest of the journey, she filled the car with stories about her toddlers instead. Chaotic little anecdotes involving yoghurt on walls, emergency soft toys and a spectacular nursery incident involving glitter glue and a hamster. And Harrison listened. Because Murray had a rare natural ability some officers developed and others never managed, no matter how many courses they attended. She made people relax without ever losing focus. Warmth without softness.

A damn good FLO.

Which was exactly why he’d brought her.

Professional mode slid back into place the second Harrison turned into the estate where Kayleigh Brennan supposedly lived. Tower blocks loomed over them in stained concrete rows while gulls screamed somewhere above the rooftops. The place looked exhausted. Long corridors of social housing patched with metal shutters, broken fencing and graffiti layered so thick it almost became wallpaper. Overflowing bins sat ripped open by foxes. Burn marks blackened the pavement beside a smashed bus shelter.

Harrison parked near the entrance road and took the whole place in with the same detached instinct he never really switched off. Drug runners loitered near the off-licence pretending not to watch cars. Teenagers circled on bikes. One lad was permanently stationed near the stairwell entrance with his hood up. Lookout. Harrison had spent too many years in London not to recognise the ecosystem instantly.

Forgotten places created their own economies.

A marked Humberside squad car sat nearby. Visible enough to reassure. Far enough away not to spook anyone. Two uniforms sat inside, drinking takeaway coffee. They lowered the window when Harrison and Murray got out.

“All quiet so far, sir,” one of them called over. “No contact made. She is inside.”

Harrison nodded his thanks and smoothed down his tie while glancing up at the tower block. Ninth floor. Christ. Half the windows looked boarded from the outside. Others hung permanently open despite the wind. Laundry fluttered from balconies beside satellite dishes hanging at impossible angles. The building carried the same feeling the riverside had yesterday. Used up. Left behind.

And suddenly Harrison understood with painful clarity how a woman like Lauren Pike could disappear from here with no one important noticing.

He angled his head to Murray. “Let’s go.”

The entrance smelled of piss and stale smoke. The intercom panel was smashed open, wires exposed beneath cracked plastic buttons. Harrison pressed the buzzer for Kayleigh’s flat. Nothing. Again. Still nothing. Before he could try a third time, the security door jerked open from inside, and a middle-aged man carrying two black bin bags shuffled out. Harrison caught the door before it shut again and nodded Murray inside first.

The lift had been condemned, apparently. A handwritten sign taped across the doors read OUT OF ORDER in faded marker pen beneath layers of old graffiti and scorch marks. So they took the stairs. Nine floors. Concrete steps stained dark with old water damage and the faint smell of piss spiralling upward through blinking strip lights. Murray kept pace beside him. By the seventh floor, Harrison could smell weed drifting through the corridor vents. By the eighth, a baby cried behind one door and a couple screamed at each other two flats down.

The ninth floor was quieter. A relief, at least.

Flat 9C sat near the far end beside a smashed window patched badly with cardboard and duct tape. Harrison stepped forward and knocked firmly on the door before nodding once at Murray.

“Kayleigh?” Murray called through the letterbox, calm and warm. “It’s PC Murray and DI Black. We’d like a quick word if that’s alright. You’re not in any trouble, love.”

Silence answered first.

Then, after a while, chains rattled on the other side before the door opened a cautious inch. One heavily lined eye peered through the gap between lock and frame. “What’s this about?”

Harrison held up his warrant card. “Do you know a Lauren Pike?”

The eye blinked. Then the door opened wider. “She turned up then?”