Chapter Two

                                    

                                          
"Here's Christine's address," Lestrade says, handing us a slip of paper as he continues to look through his filing cabinet. "And here's the phone numbers for her family." 
                          
I nod my thanks as I take the folder, flicking through it and taking out what we need.
                          
"Any news yet on Blake's older family?" dad questions as I slip the folder back onto Lestrade's desk. 
                          
"Not yet," he admits, straightening up. "We're running a scan through all the old census', but nothing's come up so far."
                          
"Text me when you get them through," dad says, turning and leading me out of the police station.
                          
***
                          
"Christine's house," dad says as we come to a stop outside a small, semi-detached house halfway down Bigginwood Road, near Croydon.
                          
"Certainly one of the better neighbourhoods to live in," I remark, looking critically around the street as I follow dad up the path. "Must be worth half a million of anyone's money." 
                          
"It's an old lock," dad says quietly, running his hand along the door handle. He grimaces as he pushes the handle down and the lock snaps. Dad stumbles forward as the door suddenly swings open, and he regains his balance as he grabs onto an old chest.
                          
 I follow him in slowly, taking in the small size of the rooms. "It looks as though she's just stepped outside to the corner shop," I say, my eyes brushing over the dishes piling up by the sink and a table laid out for two. "Or to the graveyard." 
                          
Dad nods in agreement as he steps through into a living room and we squeeze past a coffee table too large for the room. Photos of family members line the walls and mantelpiece, taking pride of place beside the cheap knick-knacks. Family obviously meant a lot to her, I note, as I pick up a photo of a woman with a young boy. I slip the picture out and turn it over, looking to see if the people were identified.
                          
Christine Blake, 34, with son Billy, 7, on his birthday trip to London Zoo.
                          
"So where's the boy?" I wonder out loud, and dad turns to me. "Christine had a son, Billy. No father anywhere on the scene as we can see from the photos."
                          
"They were all taken around six years ago," dad continues, beginning to pick up some of the Blake's at their wedding day. "If they'd divorced, then she would have taken the pictures down. The fact that the pictures are still up suggests his death."
                          
"The gravestone Christine was looking at," I say, flicking through the mental pictures I took of the stone. "It says she was married to 'Jacob Blake'..." I trail off as dad flips the picture in his hand over, looking at the name.
                          
"Jacob Blake," he confirms, before taking a picture and sliding it back into its frame.
                          
"Bit of a coincidence," I mutter.
                          
"'The world is rarely so lazy,'" dad quotes himself, manoeuvring his large frame around the table and back through to the hallway again.
                          
I follow him out, looking up the dark staircase before climbing it. 
                          
Space is limited up here too. Robots and electrical devices line the skirting boards but my eyes brush over them, focusing instead on the closed door at the top. 
                          
I push it open gently and blink away the dust which greats me. The room looks like it's been untouched for several weeks, despite it belonging to the youngest of the family. Where has the boy been for so long? He could have been abroad to visit family, but the room would be tidier than this. Perhaps he's dead? No, I think to myself, they would have made an effort to clear the room. It's almost as if they were waiting for him to come back, maybe from school. So he's gone missing too.
                          
I take the stairs two at a time as I climb back down, and enter the living room to find dad with a burst of energy, but stop as I notice he's on the phone.
                          
"Where?" dad questions as I stand by the doorframe, and he nods in acknowledgement after a moment of silence. "We'll be there." He ends the conversation and slides his phone into his pocket. "It's Lestrade," he confirms, reading my mind. "One of the missing people have been found in St. Ann's Hospital, approximately fourteen minutes away from the cemetery." I nod my head and follow him towards the door.