In the rain, Anya Jordan is walking with her young son. Just as they are across the street from their house, she lets go of his hand, and he tells her he will race her home. Suddenly, he is hit by a car with such force that the boy hits the windshield. Though Anya screams for help, the car leaves. 

Kate Evans walks into the office of Detective Inspector Ray Stevens at Bristol’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to tell him of a new case in Fishponds, in which a five-year-old boy was killed. He asks if she can stay late: “They exchanged half-smiles in mutual acknowledgment of the adrenaline rush it always felt so wrong to enjoy when something so horrific had happened” (8). Ray Stevens asks Sergeant Jake Owen, or Stumpy, to get on Intelligence to find out if any information has come in. Then he takes Kate to the crime scene, where police are processing the scene.

Inside, Jacob’s distraught mother, Anya, sits. Asking sergeant Brian to brief Kate, Ray asks the mother some questions and finds that she could not see inside the car and did not see its number plate.