‘Because of Ana. The babysitter. When I went to the Serbian church, a bloke there – probably the one who reported me to you – called me a pimp. They knew I was looking for Ana. Why would he call me a pimp unless he thought she was a prostitute?’

‘But Ana isn’t a prostitute.’

‘No,’ Robin said. ‘She was front of house.’

Silence.

‘Where?’

‘Alum Rock. Just a house. This girl said it was different from Staverton’s place, as decent as it could be, clean. There was security – food. She said Corinna looked after them. She said she was kind. Samir, it’s been closed for ten days. They’ve been going there, to work, but it’s all shut up.’

He stopped in a layby and made two calls, one to Lara Morton, the SIO on Shannon’s case, the other to DI Webster.

When he hung up, he sat back in his seat. Traffic streamed past the window, feet away but distant. He’d had a haircut since she’d last seen him, or shaved the sides himself; the hair above his ear was short, the greys like iron filings.

‘Weren’t you supposed to be keeping out of it?’ he said.

She looked through the windscreen at the long winter grass on the verge. ‘Selling other women’s bodies,’ she said. ‘Girls.’ In the pocket of her door, tucked behind a copy of the Post, she could see a unicorn sticker book like the ones Lennie used to have. His daughter must be six or seven by now. Leila, she was called.

‘How would she ever have got into it?’

Robin thought of Kev, his insistence that history would not repeat itself. It’s not fucking happening to my kids.

‘Remember her dad,’ she said. ‘Trevor. How much Di struggled when they were growing up, moving all the time because he’d drunk the rent or never earned it in the first place? All the times he went AWOL. Corinna wanted Peter to have stability. She thought that’s what she was getting with Josh – it must have looked like a pretty safe bet.’

‘That’s why, not how. And where does he fit into this, Josh? Where is he?’

‘I don’t know.’

Neither of them spoke. Robin watched the traffic pass the window and had the idea that it was a river flowing, time, the layby a slow pool at the edge, a brief pause before the onward rush.

‘Our friends,’ she said. She heard him take a deep breath then he sat forward and started the engine. ‘Where are we going now?’

‘I’m taking you home.’

He parked outside the house and undid his seatbelt. ‘I’ll walk you to the door.’

‘It’s fifteen feet, I think I can handle it.’