Jai fiddled with his tablet. ‘It also turns out that Donna was right. Gwen Twigg is Daniel’s mother. She moved away from Gritton but told a friend she knew a secret about Daniel. We don’t know if it’s the same secret that Gary told Violet shortly before they were both killed – the secret about the Pale Child. Anyway, we’re bringing her in. But look what we found inside Daniel’s caravan.’ Onto a screen behind us came photographs of what had been discovered in the secret half of the caravan. The half Daniel hadn’t wanted me to look at, just before I got doused in blood. The internal walls were plastered with pictures and newspaper articles.

About the Pale Child.

The headlines jumped out at me. Pale Child claims another victim. Pale Child returns to village. Just a toddler when the Pale Child came for him. The images were artists’ representations. Girls in white dresses running away through the trees, or over the rocks. Except one, which looked like a Victorian photograph. I peered more closely at it. A girl of about seven, leaning back on a chair, her eyes closed.

‘Is that the original girl who died?’ I asked.

‘We think so,’ Fiona said.

‘She doesn’t look very lively.’

‘I think it’s a post-mortem photograph,’ Fiona said. ‘Taken after she was strangled.’

‘Jesus Christ.’ I stepped back from the photograph. I’d heard about the Victorians doing this, but it was unsettling to see the real girl. The original Pale Child. Dead. And to think that Daniel had chosen to put her on his wall, in the area where he slept.

‘There’s another weird thing,’ Fiona said. ‘We found DNA on that doll’s face mask you rescued from the cliff, and there’s a familial relationship with Violet.’

‘What? The girl I saw dressed as the Pale Child is related to Violet? How closely?’

‘Not as close as a sibling or parent. But almost certainly a relation.’

‘As was the original Pale Child,’ I said.

I had a flash of memory. Blood flying at me. The words Daniel had spoken about his younger brother.

‘Maybe that’s why he started telling me about his brother falling down the spillway,’ I said. ‘Because I insisted on going into his caravan, and he realised I was going to see this. Maybe he was trying to explain.’

‘Daniel was obsessed with the Pale Child because of his brother?’ Jai said.

Craig cleared his throat. ‘He could have killed his brother as well. That could be the secret. Why Gwen Twigg never comes to Gritton and never sees her only son. She can’t stand to see him because he killed his little brother.’

The energy in the room rose. The team thought we had our man.