Sam went back to her second question. ‘Do you recognize something from the footage?’

‘I think so. Yes. I think so. There were kids hanging around at the bus station, weren’t there, Angie?’

‘There always are. The place is full of them,’ her friend confirmed. Sam knew what they meant. Places like that, bus stations, railway stations, shopping centres, they were magnets for feral kids skipping school, somewhere they could be anonymous. No one cared much who they were or what they were doing.

‘Did you notice any in particular?’

Donna thought for a moment, but Sam got the impression she wasn’t remembering, she was just confirming to herself what she was going to say. ‘I’d pointed them out to Angie. There were two of them going up and down all the stances. A boy and a girl. He was sort of calling out to her all the time, making sure she was keeping up. She was dragging her heels a bit, getting distracted, smiling at people, but he was in front. I was holding Matthew’s hand, getting ready to go on the bus…’ Sam waited for Donna to falter. She didn’t. ‘I knew I’d never be like those kids’ parents. Never let him out of my sight to get up to God knows what.’ At these words, Angie Bell got up and walked through to the tiny kitchen. Donna’s eyes never looked up as she kept on talking. ‘You know what happened, don’t you?’ she asked Sam. ‘They must have been looking for something to get up to and they must have been hanging about the toilets when they saw Angie go in.’

‘We’re only guessing at this stage,’ said Sam, not willing to commit herself to anything that the young woman might cling on to at any point, especially later when she was alone reflecting on things. ‘What do you think happened?’

‘You must see kids like that all the time. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. Avoiding whatever is going on at home, not wanting to go to school. Why don’t you do something about it? Why don’t the police pick them up? Chase the parents? Fine them? There were coppers in that bus station you know–I saw them leaving when we went in, plastic cups of coffee and sausage rolls in their hands. You lot only go to places like that when you need to for yourselves or when there’s been a stabbing or something. Don’t you think that if you were there you could stop things happening before they started? Don’t you even believe that if you actually took an interest you could stop people doing bad things?’ What had started as anger was fading now, and Sam could only hear resignation behind the sobbing.