Geraldine went inside and closed the front door. Jessica appeared to be raving, but it was understandable that a woman prone to hysteria might become temporarily unhinged by the shock of her baby going missing.

‘Jessica,’ Geraldine began, ‘we’re doing everything we can to find Daisy. I think it might help you to see your doctor and ask him to prescribe something to help you cope while you’re waiting. It must seem interminable, but we will find her –’ she hesitated to add, ‘if that’s possible.’

Jessica shook her head vehemently. ‘No, no, you don’t understand. This is different. There’s something I have to show you.’

Grabbing Geraldine by the arm, she dragged her towards the stairs. For a second Geraldine resisted, wondering what Jessica wanted with her. She regretted not having summoned backup, even though there was nothing as yet to indicate she might require help.

‘Come on, you have to see this,’ Jessica insisted, her eyes blazing with despair.

Geraldine nodded and followed her up the stairs into a nursery. The walls were covered in pale pink paper where pink rabbits cavorted, amidst a sprinkling of tiny pink flowers. Matching curtains hung at the window. A white cot stood in the centre of the room beneath a brightly coloured mobile. For an instant, Geraldine felt a fleeting hope that she might see a small baby sleeping peacefully in the cot, and discover that the disappearance had only ever existed in Jessica’s febrile imagination.

Jessica pointed at the cot and gestured frantically to Geraldine to look inside it. With a frown, Geraldine stepped forward to peer at a few red dots right at the edge of the pale pink sheet. She bent down to examine the sheet more closely. She had not been mistaken. The red marks were there, and they looked as though they might be bloodstains.

‘I was just changing the sheet – I came in here to make sure it was all tidy for her –’ Jessica stammered.

‘Please, don’t touch anything in here,’ Geraldine said, taking Jessica by the elbow and ushering her firmly out of the room. ‘Go downstairs and wait for me outside. I need to make a call.’

Eileen had said there was no evidence of a crime having been committed. With a sickening feeling, Geraldine hoped she had not just seen something to prove Eileen wrong. Gently Geraldine told Jessica that while the house was being treated as a crime scene, she would have to leave.

‘Can you stay with your mother?’

Jessica looked stunned. ‘But – I don’t understand. What do you mean? I’ve just made a pot of tea.’

Carefully Geraldine explained that the marks on Daisy’s sheet would have to be forensically examined. In the unlikely event that they turned out to be bloodstains, then the whole house would be searched for fingerprints and the DNA of any intruder.