Discarded by M. Hunter (the reading list .txt) 📕

point out, guessing that he’s thinking there might still be trace evidence to collect. I turn it over regardless, resting it face-down, and indicating the date of birth in the top corner.

‘Do we know if there’s a date of birth on the second photograph?’ he asks next, his jaw stiffening.

‘Maddie has only scanned one side of the image. I’ll ask her to send the reverse too,’ I say, typing the message. ‘I take it you don’t recognise him as missing from this area?’

Rick considers the image again before shaking his head. ‘Sorry.’

Opening my laptop I load my emails so I can look at the picture of the young man on a bigger screen. He has a face full of freckles and his auburn hair curls naturally, from fringe to the crown. I’d guess he’s fifteen or sixteen at most, but there is a seriousness to the half-smile he’s holding, and it reminds me of the picture of Faye. She too had this semi-serious pose, and when I load the two images beside each other on the screen, I’m suddenly struck with a thought.

‘What do these look like to you?’ I ask Rick, turning the screen so he can see it better.

‘School photographs?’ he shrugs.

‘No uniform,’ I counter, ‘besides, school photographs are usually head, shoulders, and upper torso. These are headshots, like you’d see in a modelling portfolio, or—’

He clicks his fingers. ‘Actors.’

I shrug in acceptance. ‘Maybe. If I’m a casting director auditioning for roles, this is what I’d expect to see alongside a résumé…’

My mind continues to process the theory as nausea bubbles in the back of my throat. An image of the Pendark Film Studios sign flashes behind my eyes. Given Freddie’s and Anna’s faces both appeared on footage discovered on the late Arthur Turgood’s hard drive, is it possible Faye and this young man also did? I will have to raise the question with Jack when I next speak to him. In the meantime, there isn’t a lot to go on.

My phone pings and I see Maddie’s next email appear in my inbox on the laptop screen.

‘My agent has sent the reverse now,’ I tell Rick, opening the attached image. ‘It’s not easy to read… Does that say Chesney Byrne?’

Rick leans so close I catch the scent of his eau de toilette again. ‘I think so. That name mean anything to you?’

I shake my head but log in to the Foundation database just in case, once again drawing a blank. I open a search window and type his name and the date of birth scrawled beneath it, but there are no hits. That’s odd. When I searched for Faye’s name, I immediately found news articles relating to her disappearance, but Chesney Byrne is drawing a blank. Opening the missingpeople.org site, I search for his name, but the results are either for “Chesney” or “Byrne”, but no “Chesney Byrne”, and no picture that matches the face before us.

Rick sighs in defeat. ‘Not all children who go missing are abducted by evil monsters; some just run away.’

I shake my head. ‘I’m still not buying it. If Faye and Chesney were both actors, then searching for them online would reveal more about them as actors – films or shows they’ve appeared in, websites. The only references to Faye’s name are those relating to her disappearance.’

Rick moves away but he isn’t cross; watching him as he stares into the distance, I know exactly what is on his mind – it happens to the best of us. He’s caught in the mystery, wanting to figure out exactly what’s going on. He suddenly spins on his heel and points at the laptop screen.

‘Search for Chesney online,’ he says.

‘I tried that, but there was no trace.’

‘No,’ he corrects, ‘you searched for his name and date of birth. Search with his face. You can upload the image and the search engine will look for similar matches. If this particular image has appeared anywhere online, the search engine should be able to find it.’

I slide the laptop to the edge of the table and watch as he performs the search. ‘No exact matches,’ he tells me. He expands the search and then a satisfied look creeps across his face and he slides the laptop back to me. ‘There you go.’

The image on the screen isn’t the headshot Maddie has scanned and emailed, but the young face I’m now looking at definitely has an abundance of freckles and the curliest auburn hair I’ve ever seen. Younger here, the Star & Crescent’s image of missing eleven-year-old Cormack Fitzpatrick is a very good likeness.

‘What do you think?’ Rick says. ‘I reckon they’re one and the same. Why don’t you check that missing people site for Cormack Fitzpatrick?’

I do as instructed, and also search for the name on the Foundation database without success. He is listed on the missing people site, along with a phone number for Hampshire Police.

‘Cormack was eleven when he was last seen. Left for school on Friday 1st April 1996, but never arrived. He was known for being a practical joker, and at first his parents thought his disappearance was part of some elaborate prank, but when they still hadn’t heard from him by ten o’clock that night, they phoned the police. He withdrew all his savings the night before his disappearance, and although the police searched local hostels, they couldn’t locate him. The image that’s been sent must be three or four years older, right?’

Rick compares the images again before nodding. ‘Give or take, yeah.’

‘Then who sent the picture to my agent’s office?’

It’s a question neither of us can answer. Rick is hunched over the screen again, studying something intently.

‘And why send them to me? Aside from Faye and Cormack both being missing children, what else connects them? She was from Oldham and disappeared in November 1998, and he was from Gosport and vanished two years earlier. He was on his way to school, and she was on her way home, but I can’t see anything