Rahma didn't sleep.
Not properly. Not even close.
She spent most of the night sitting cross-legged on her living-room floor, surrounded by printouts, scribbled notes, old estate maps, and a stack of newspaper archives she pulled from the central library database. The missing child—seven-year-old Yusuf Khan—had vanished forty-eight hours ago. His disappearance resembled patterns no one else seemed to see, patterns that pushed against Rahma's ribs like something trying to escape.
Every estate.
Every case.
Every time frame.
The same strange markers repeating like an echo.
By sunrise, the city hummed with the sound of buses, delivery vans, and impatient commuters. Rahma was already walking fast through the grey London chill, hood up, bag heavy with documents. She kept replaying the message she'd received at 2:17 a.m.—the anonymous tip sent from an untraceable number:
"You're looking in the wrong place. Go back to where it started."
No name.
No context.
Nothing else.
Her breath fogged the cold air as she reached the entrance of the station—Southwick Estate Police Sub-Division. Officers streamed in and out, most of them ignoring her. Some recognised her from previous cases and nodded politely. Others glanced once, then averted their eyes, already expecting trouble. Rahma didn't slow down. She walked straight to the front desk.
"I need to speak to DI Fraser. It's urgent."
The desk officer—a tired man with deep lines between his brows—sighed.
"He's in briefings, Ms. Noor. And he said no interruptions."
"He'll want to hear this interruption," Rahma said, steady but firm. "It concerns a connection between Yusuf's disappearance and the 2014 Westbrook Case."
The officer's expression twitched. Not shock—just discomfort. They all hated when old cases surfaced.
"Wait here."
He vanished into the corridor. Rahma stood still, trying to make her breathing sound normal. She replayed the pieces in her mind: the identical disappearance routes, the repeated blind spots in CCTV, the same abandoned properties surrounding each incident.
She finally had a thread—thin, delicate, but real.
A door clicked open. Fraser strode out, jaw clenched, expression hardened just enough to remind her this would not be easy.
"What now, Rahma?"
"I've found a link you all missed."
"That's bold, considering we've been through every lead twice."
Rahma didn't flinch. "Just hear me out."
Fraser exhaled sharply through his nose but gestured for her to follow. She stepped into the briefing room—whiteboards filled with maps and notes, officers clustered in corners with tablets and reports. Her presence drew several glances, not all friendly.
Rahma placed her folder on the table.
"Every child who disappeared since 2014 lived within a three-street radius of estate developments that underwent silent ownership changes. The same investors. The same shell companies. And all the estates contain unused community buildings with restricted access."
Fraser folded his arms. "And?"
"And," Rahma continued, "those same buildings appear repeatedly in CCTV dead zones. Either by coincidence—which I don't believe—or by deliberate manipulation."
Several officers exchanged looks.
"So what are you suggesting?" Fraser asked.
"That the disappearances didn't start with Yusuf or with Westbrook," Rahma said. "They're part of a coordinated pattern centred on properties controlled by one hidden group."
"And you think you're the first person to consider this?"
Rahma tensed. "Have you checked the ownership logs?"
"Yes," Fraser said, unimpressed. "They lead nowhere. Shell companies are built to look suspicious. That doesn't mean anything."
Rahma opened another file. "Except these ones were registered on the same days as the disappearances."
Silence.
A few officers leaned in.
Fraser's expression hardened. "That's a coincidence."
"It isn't."
"You're pushing a theory without proof," he said.
Rahma's heart thudded, but she forced her voice to remain calm. "I'm following patterns no one else is willing to connect."
Fraser leaned closer, lowering his voice. "We don't have time for guesswork."
"This isn't guesswork."
"It looks like it from where I'm standing."
Anger pricked at Rahma's spine—not rage, but the bitter sting of being dismissed. Again. Always. Even when she did the groundwork no one else bothered with.
"Give me an hour," she said softly. "Just one hour to show you the building I think is connected. If I'm wrong, I walk away."
"And if you're right?" Fraser asked.
Rahma met his eyes. "Then we're running out of time."
He hesitated, and for a moment she saw doubt crack through his stubborn façade. But instead of agreeing, he stepped back and shook his head.
"Not today."
Her stomach dropped.
"This investigation is delicate. Last thing we need is a journalist stirring up more noise."
"I'm telling you, there's something there—"
"That's enough, Noor. Go home."
The dismissal hit harder than she expected. Not because he rejected her theory—but because she knew she was right. She felt it in her bones, the same way she sensed storms before they arrived.
Rahma slowly closed her folder, nodded once, and walked out without another word. Officers watched her leave, some pitying, others relieved. She ignored all of them.
The cold air outside slapped her cheeks, clearing her thoughts. If the police wouldn't listen, she had no choice.
She would go to the building alone.
Rahma tightened her scarf, shifted the weight of her bag across her shoulder, and began walking toward the bus stop.
The anonymous message replayed in her mind:
"Go back to where it started."
Fine.
She would.
With or without them.
Rahma tapped her fingers anxiously against her leg as the bus rattled through the city, carrying her deeper into the maze of London's older estates. The sky was a flat, washed-out grey, the kind that blurred buildings into silhouettes and made every street feel colder, narrower, quieter. Perfect for disappearing if someone knew how.
The route signs flickered.
Harrowfield Estate – 6 stops.
The exact place she didn't want to revisit.
No matter how many years passed, she always felt a pinch in her chest when buses rolled through that neighbourhood. A pressure she could never fully explain. Childhood memories tugged at her mind—ones she had sealed away, half-believed, half-feared.
She got off two stops early. She didn't want to be dropped exactly where she was going. Not when she still didn't know who sent the message. Not when someone might be watching.
Rahma pulled her hood lower and crossed the street, weaving around a group of schoolchildren and a set of delivery bikes propped lazily against a wall. The estate stretched ahead of her: rows of flats in muted reds and greys, small balconies cluttered with laundry, satellite dishes, and pot plants clinging to life.
But her focus was on the far corner—a structure she remembered from childhood, though she had never questioned it then. An old community centre. Closed for "renovations" since she was nine.
Except no work had ever begun.
And no one ever asked why.
Rahma approached slowly, scanning the street. Two elderly men stood outside a shop arguing about football scores. A mum pushed a pram across the pavement. Nothing suspicious. But her pulse stayed high.
She reached the centre's double doors. Rusted. Locked. Boarded at the top corners. A fresh padlock, though. That was new.
Rahma frowned and stepped back. The police might not have cared, but this place was wrong. Too quiet. Too maintained to be abandoned, too neglected to be in use. That in-between space where secrets could hide without attracting attention.
Her phone buzzed.
A new message from an unknown number.
"You're close."
Rahma froze.
A chill ran down her spine, sharp enough to make her grip her phone tighter.
She typed quickly:
"Who are you?"
No reply.
She swallowed hard, then walked along the side of the building, checking windows—some sealed, some cracked, one half-covered by a loose panel. She tugged it gently. It shifted. Not enough to climb through, but enough to see darkness inside.
A flutter of movement caught her eye.
Rahma turned.
A man stood at the far end of the alley. Tall. Wearing a dark jacket. Hood up. Hands in pockets. Not moving. Not approaching.
Just watching.
Rahma's heartbeat thudded painfully. She forced herself not to back away too quickly, but her legs moved faster than she intended. She stepped onto the main road, merging with a pair of teenagers heading home. She kept walking, head down, refusing to look back.
The community centre wasn't safe.
But it was important.
She just didn't know why yet.
Rahma sat on a stone ledge opposite the estate's bus stop, pretending to review her notes while watching reflections in the shelter's glass. Her hands were cold, but she didn't let herself shiver.
She had to think clearly.
The police didn't believe her. Fraser dismissed her. But the building… the message… the man in the alley…
It all pointed toward something bigger.
Rahma flipped through her documents until she reached a page she had barely noticed before: a 2014 maintenance log for the same building, filed two weeks after the Westbrook disappearance. A single line at the bottom read:
ACCESS GRANTED TO EXTERNAL PERSONNEL – SEE ATTACHED NAME LIST.
But there was no attached list. The police never uploaded it. Or someone removed it.
Her throat tightened.
Someone had been in that building during the original case. Someone the police trusted. Someone whose name was deliberately erased.
She snapped a picture with her phone.
The bus arrived. She got on, kept her head low, and sat by the window. London blurred past again, but she didn't feel any safer.
When she reached her flat, she locked the door twice, kicked off her shoes, and dumped her bag on the dining table.
Her phone buzzed again.
Another unknown message:
"Stop digging."
Rahma's stomach dropped.
She typed before she could stop herself.
"Make me."
Her thumb hovered over the screen as it sent. The moment it delivered, the typing bubble on the other side vanished.
No reply.
Silence again.
Rahma closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. She wasn't scared—not exactly. It felt more like her mind sharpening, recognising that she had crossed a line she couldn't come back from.
She glanced at the whiteboard pinned on her wall.
Faces. Maps. Notes.
Yusuf.
Westbrook.
The estates.
Her parents.
Everything was connected.
She could feel the pattern.
But she couldn't see its shape yet.
Rahma dropped into her chair, opened her laptop, and began pulling up the original Westbrook public files again. She skimmed quickly, faster than before, her pulse racing. Something was there—something she'd missed.
Two hours later, she found it.
A statement.
Not from a witness.
From an "external support observer" authorised by the police during the first case.
The signature wasn't visible.
Just initials.
S.N.
Rahma stared at the screen, her breath stuck in her throat.
There was only one person she knew with those initials.
Her mother.
Rahma stared at the initials on her screen for a long, numbing moment.
S.N.
She traced them with her eyes again and again, hoping they would rearrange themselves into something harmless. Something ordinary. Something that wasn't her mother.
Her mother had never mentioned the Westbrook case.
Not once.
Rahma would have remembered.
She scrolled further down the statement, desperate for clarification—a full name, a title, even a hint of what role an "external observer" was supposed to play. But the file had been scrubbed. Entire sections were blank where text should have been. The format was messy, as if someone had quickly cut parts out before anyone noticed.
Rahma pushed her laptop away and stood abruptly, pacing the room. Her hands wouldn't stay still. She wrung them together, then dragged them through her hair.
This wasn't right.
None of this made sense.
Her mother taught English. She volunteered at the library. She baked almond biscuits every Eid and organised food drives in winter. She wasn't connected to police investigations. She wasn't someone who would hide involvement in a missing child case.
Except… she had.
At least once.
And maybe more.
Rahma felt something shifting under her feet. A truth she had suspected but never wanted to believe. That her parents weren't just avoiding her questions—
They were protecting something.
Or protecting someone.
Her phone vibrated again, breaking her spiralling thoughts.
Unknown Number:
"Leave the past alone."
Rahma's pulse jumped.
She typed instantly:
"Tell me who you are."
No reply.
She threw her phone onto the sofa, frustrated. Whoever they were, they were watching her every step. They knew what she was searching. They knew she went to the community centre. They knew she had found the initials.
And they wanted her to stop.
Rahma opened her window. Cold air rushed inside, stinging her cheeks. She tried to breathe it in slowly, grounding herself. The city lights flickered across rooftops; distant traffic hummed like a restless heartbeat. Somewhere below, people argued, laughed, lived, unaware of how close everything felt to cracking open.
She closed the window, grabbed her coat, and marched to the door.
She needed answers.
And she knew exactly where to get them.
The walk to her parents' house took twenty minutes. The air was damp, the pavement reflecting faint glimmers of streetlights. Rahma kept her pace steady, her mind burning with too many questions.
When she knocked, her father opened the door.
His face softened—then tightened.
"Rahma? It's late."
"I need to talk to Mum."
"Now isn't a good—"
"It's not a request," Rahma said gently, but firmly.
Her father hesitated, searching her expression. Whatever he saw there made him step aside. "She's in the kitchen."
Rahma walked in, nerves twisting tighter with every step. Her mother stood at the counter slicing fruit, the smell of cardamom tea filling the quiet room. She looked up and smiled.
"You're here late, sweetheart."
The smile faded quickly.
A mother's instinct.
She sensed the storm coming.
Rahma placed her phone on the table, screen showing the document with the initials S.N.
Her mother's hands stilled.
"What is this?" Rahma asked.
A long silence stretched between them.
Her mother set the knife down carefully, as if any sudden movement might break something fragile.
"It's nothing you need to worry about," she said softly.
Rahma shook her head. "You were involved in the Westbrook case."
A flinch.
Small.
Instant.
Her father stepped into the doorway, watching quietly, tension in his shoulders.
Her mother exhaled slowly, eyes dropping to the counter. "Rahma… some things were difficult back then. The neighbourhood was different. People were desperate. Police needed community representatives, and I—"
"You never told me."
"You were a child. It was not something we wanted you to remember."
Rahma felt her throat tighten. "But I do remember things. Pieces. Scattered. None of them make sense."
Her mother's eyes filled with a pain Rahma hadn't expected.
Not guilt—
Fear.
"Some truths," her mother whispered, "were never meant to be reopened."
Rahma stepped forward. "A boy is missing. That old case is connected to his. If you know anything—anything at all—you have to tell me."
Her mother closed her eyes, breathing through a tremor in her voice.
"We can't."
"We?" Rahma repeated sharply. "Both of you?"
Her father looked down.
Her mother wiped her palms on her apron, steadying herself.
"We made a promise," her father said quietly. "A long time ago."
"A promise to who?" Rahma asked. "The police? The estate? Some organisation?"
Neither answered.
That silence said more than words could.
Rahma's voice softened. "Mum… Dad… why are you afraid?"
Her mother finally looked at her. Really looked. And Rahma saw something old and heavy in her eyes. Something she had carried for years.
"It wasn't the police," her mother said, voice barely a whisper.
"It was them."
Rahma's breath caught.
"Who?"
Her mother closed her eyes again, as if saying the name itself was dangerous.
"The ones behind the buildings. Behind the disappearances. Behind everything."
Her voice broke.
"The ones who called themselves… The Final Source."
Rahma felt the room tilt.
Her mother stepped forward, gripping Rahma's hands tightly. "Please. Stop looking. If they know you're digging—Rahma, they will not hesitate."
Rahma pulled her hands away gently.
"It's too late," she said. "They already know."
Her mother's face drained of colour.
Her father reached for the door as if expecting someone to burst in.
Rahma swallowed hard and stepped back from them both.
"You should have told me," she whispered.
"We were trying to protect you," her father said.
Rahma shook her head. "You might have done the opposite."
She turned and walked out, her parents calling her name behind her. She didn't stop. Couldn't stop. Not now.
Outside, the cold hit her like a slap.
But the truth was finally cracking open.
And she was ready for whatever came next.