Ana, Thomas told them, had been found gagged and bound in Staverton’s van on a disused access road to the farm. She’d been mute with fright, unable to say anything for almost an hour. Staverton had followed her home one night from the massage parlour, she said eventually, and found out where she lived. When she’d moved, he’d traced her to the new place. He’d taken her from there. If she didn’t help him with Lennie, he’d said, tell her the story about visiting Peter, he’d kill her. She’d been afraid he would anyway. Why would he keep her alive, she’d said, when she knew what he’d done to Shannon and Corinna?

Robin sat on the edge of the bed, clutching Lennie’s hand. If it was possible, she’d never let go of it again – she’d go to college with her, surgically attached. She wondered if she’d ever be able to articulate the terror of those minutes that her life, both their lives, had hung in the balance.

In the strip lighting, Lennie looked bleached out, almost green. ‘They shot him, Mum.’

‘I know.’ Now that Lennie was safe – bodily safe – a whole new set of anxieties had sprung into Robin’s mind. What would the long-term consequences be? The psychological ones. How terrified must she have been in the dark, the door smashed in, the shouting? She’d been ten feet away from him, he hadn’t used her as a shield; there’d been no danger, in fact, that she might be shot by accident, but what had happened tonight would live with her forever.

‘Is he dead?’

‘No, love.’ Staverton had regained consciousness in the ambulance. The bullet had only hit him in the shoulder but as he’d fallen, he’d smacked his head on the barn’s poured concrete floor and knocked himself out. Webster had travelled in with him, said Thomas, to talk to him, start piecing some of it together.

‘Is he here? This hospital?’ Lennie sat up. Her eyes went wide.

‘No. This is the children’s hospital, just for kids. You’re okay – you’re safe.’

‘Mum, what about Peter’s dad?’

Robin glanced at Thomas, who’d slipped into their curtained-off bay and taken the chair at the bottom of the bed until Luke and Natalie had arrived and booted her out of it, apparently unabashed.

Should I? You think she’s up to it?

Robin nodded.

‘We won’t get the whole story until he’s interviewed formally,’ said Thomas. ‘I don’t have to tell you that, you’re a detective’s daughter, aren’t you?’ She was nervous, Robin realized, scared to tell her. ‘He told us that it was him who drove Peter’s dad’s car to Warwick so that it would look like he was the one who’d done it, the fire, then gone into hiding.’