She wanted to do this online, but I want to hear her voice. I need to hear the gaps between her sentences and when she takes a breath and how she says every single word.

I sent her my other number, and now, almost twenty-four hours after her first message, Dad’s phone starts to vibrate.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey.”

“Thanks for calling.”

She doesn’t reply, so I say, “Do you watch the show?”

“Yes.”

She sounds young.

I wait for her to say something else, and when she doesn’t, I say, “I know you’re worried. But anything you think might help us catch him could be the clue we’re looking for.”

Still nothing, which makes me trust her, because she’s genuinely scared or nervous or both.

“I got a lot of messages after the last show,” I say. “Yours was the only one I responded to.”

She makes a noise, an intake of breath, then says, “I shouldn’t.”

“You can tell me anything, Clara. It’s just me and you, and I’d rather hear what you have to say.”

She sighs and clears her throat. “I saw you on the news. There was a man talking about his mom.”

“That was Ross. His mother was killed by the Magpie Man.”

Another intake of breath and then, “Why do you call him that?”

“My dad called him that. The newspapers found out, and now everyone says it. Like Jack the Ripper.” I hear what sounds like crying and say, “I’m sorry. I really appreciate you messaging me.”

She’s quiet for a while, blows her nose, then says, “It was so sad, seeing all those people together. It made my mom cry.”

I feel glad that it did its job and wonder how many others were brought to tears by the sight of forty-five people staring blankly into a camera, their stories recounted one by one from Dad’s to Frances Banks’s, from my mother to Lorna and the twelve in between.

“She held me really tight,” Clara says, “like she does whenever something sad happens. She doesn’t know what I saw. No one does.”

I hear quiet sobbing, and I whisper, “It’s okay.”

Whatever she thinks she knows, it’s big, and my heart races because maybe we finally have a witness.

I don’t want to scare her away, so I sit listening to her cry until she says, “Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“I know his real name,” Clara says.

“What is it?” I ask, but she doesn’t reply.

I leave a gap for her to fill, first with sniffs and whimpers, then a whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I say. “Where do you live?”

“Close.”

“Close to what? Close to me?”

I shouldn’t be forcing information out of her. I should be patient. But I need to know.

“Can you tell me who you’re talking about?” I ask.