‘Neither of them are picking up. We’ll take you home in a few minutes.’

PC Amin clatters into the kitchen. ‘I saw… in the next room… your daughter. How is she?’

‘She’s better for seeing young Connor. She’s been scant of visitors, I’m afraid.’

‘You couldn’t persuade her mum to come then?’ PC Leighton blurts. ‘Sorry, I didn’t meant to mention—’

‘But Hailey’s mum is… dead. She’s dead,’ Connor says with certainty. Hailey wouldn’t have made up anything so awful. ‘Mr Marshall?’

Mr Marshall averts his eyes and Connor notices the red flush travelling up his neck. Doubt niggles at him. ‘She is dead, isn’t she?’ But this time it’s a question, not a statement. Hailey can’t have lied to him. She just wouldn’t.

‘No. She isn’t,’ Mr Marshall says quietly.

‘But… but…’ Connor flounders, trying to make sense of it all until a thought occurs to him. ‘Does Hailey know she’s alive?’

‘No.’ Mr Marshall fixes Connor with a stony stare. He’s back. The gentle father disappearing and in his place the stern headmaster Connor knows and fears. ‘Don’t judge me, boy. You’ve no idea what I’ve been through.’

‘What you’ve been through?’ Connor doesn’t check himself. He doesn’t care that his voice is raised. That his fists are clenched. ‘You’ve let Hailey believe her mum died.’

‘It was kinder that way.’

‘I don’t know ho—’

‘It’s none of your business.’ Mr Marshall takes a step towards Connor but Connor stands his ground, fury rooting him to the spot.

‘Let’s all calm down.’ PC Amin steps between them. ‘Connor, Hailey’s mum was… troubled.’

‘A junkie, if you must know. She had a choice between her child and drugs.’

Connor turns this over in his mind. Today he’d learned a lesson that he’d always been too quick to judge. To blame.

But still he says, ‘You could have helped her?’

‘The only person who can help an addict is an addict. They have to want to change. She could have cleaned up. Come back. But she never did.’

‘But now?’ Connor gestures vaguely towards the wall separating them from Hailey. ‘Does she know about… now?’

‘Yes,’ Mr Marshall says. ‘PC Leighton helped me to track her down.’

‘I have a daughter,’ PC Leighton says. ‘And I can’t imagine not being in her life. I wanted to help.’

‘I saw her,’ Mr Marshall says. ‘And she played the concerned mother, asking questions. I thought… I thought she was interested in Hailey but all she was interested in was who was at fault.’

‘She must be angry.’ Connor knew if anything happened to him his mum would fight for the truth. Fight to do whatever she could to help.