‘I suppose I’d been hoping she was still alive, despite everything. While we didn’t have a body …’

‘I know. It’s awful. Poor girl.’

I pictured Violet’s adoptive parents, who’d been warned all those years ago. Who knew Violet shouldn’t have come to Gritton but couldn’t stop her. And Bex, who also knew to keep away from Gritton, weeping silently for her lost daughter. ‘At least if we find her body, we should get some evidence. Everything points to Gary, and we’re bringing him in, but we’ve got nothing concrete on him yet. It’s all circumstantial.’

‘But if Violet’s his daughter …’

‘I know.’

‘How horrible.’ Fiona did a rapid shake of her head. ‘Oh, and I see they’re laying into us on Facebook again.’

I gave a bitter laugh. ‘Laying into me, you mean.’

‘Mainly, to be fair. They’re going nuts that we haven’t arrested anyone from the Animal Vigilantes.’

‘For Christ’s sake.’ I knew I shouldn’t care what these people thought but it made me feel wretched. ‘It’s wonderful to get an ongoing critique of the investigation from a bunch of gammons who know nothing about police work and wouldn’t recognise the CPS if it smacked them in the face.’

The woods were behind Kirsty Nightingale’s pig farm in the valley. We drove past a huge barn behind a high fence topped with barbed wire. ‘It looks like a concentration camp from outside,’ Fiona said.

‘Having seen the cages she keeps them in, I reckon it feels like one from the inside too.’ I wasn’t in the mood to invent a bright side. ‘But then I would say that, because I sympathise with animal rights extremists.’

The road bent away from the farm and passed into trees. Fiona slowed. ‘Round here somewhere?’

A glimpse of white in the distance. We pulled closer. Police vehicles on a verge. Fiona slotted our car in behind them. ‘Am I blocking the road?’ she said anxiously.

‘No.’ I didn’t even look.

An approach path had been marked out, and we followed it deep into the woods. It had been hacked between brambles and nettles. The foliage above us was so thick it absorbed all the brightness from the sky. Some woods were beautiful – dappled light on swaying branches, easy wide paths through bluebells. This wasn’t one of them. It was a tangle of ugly plants that either stung or spiked you.

I tried to focus on the path ahead and not think about Violet. Her smooth skin in the light of a summer evening, her earnest face reporting that she’d seen the Pale Child. What would she look like now, after two days in this heat? I didn’t want to see.