‘We don’t need to go through every single file.’ Leanne broke off a sliver of Danish pastry as if she had an appetite. She struggled to swallow it. ‘Amelia’s rescuer was definitely female, so we can discount all the men.’

Leanne watched as Frankie sorted through the Manila folders and separated them into two piles. There was a name written on the front of each, and Declan Gallagher’s name was uppermost on the discarded stack.

Frankie smoothed her dark hair, which was pulled tight against her scalp. ‘Ready?’

‘How many are left?’

‘Seven, including two teens. Should we discount them too?’

‘To be honest, I’m not sure. I’ve managed to speak to the man who carried Amelia out, but he wasn’t much help at all,’ Leanne said, recalling the phone call she had made after her interview with the Parkers.

Once Leanne had realised Rex Russell could give no better a description than Amelia, she had wanted to cut their conversation short, but Rex had insisted on explaining himself. He said he may have seen Amelia earlier, he really couldn’t be sure, but he was very clear in his recollections of what happened after the ceiling had collapsed. He described hearing the cries for help from those caught in the crush, and how those cries had diminished very quickly, how the brutal pressure of bodies would have stolen the oxygen from the victims’ lungs long before the smoke could get them. He acknowledged that he and his family were lucky, but he regretted not persuading more people to follow him after he spotted an alternative escape route through a side exit. He had been on his way out when he had heard another cry for help.

‘He was pretty traumatised to be fair,’ Leanne added. ‘When he had seen a woman coming towards him with a little girl’s limp body in her arms, he had assumed the worst. As far as he was concerned, he was being handed a dead child and was too shocked to register much about the woman. He said her face was covered in dust and her hands in blood, but he couldn’t even describe her ethnicity. The only useful piece of information he could offer was that she was around five foot seven or eight.’ She stared at the files. ‘That might discount the younger ones.’

‘I do have some physical descriptions, so let’s check as we go along,’ Frankie said, pulling the first file towards her.

Leanne wasn’t sure what she had expected, but the contents of Frankie’s files were sparse. It felt wrong that a dozen or so pieces of paper should represent the sum total of a person’s life. The front sheet listed some basic facts, such as the victim’s age, along with contact details for the family.