Two lines of them, facing each other, their backs pressed against the sides of the lorry.

All young, all silent, none of them moving, as though they had died where they sat. There was a thin coating of frost on their faces.

Some of them had their eyes open. Some of them had ice hanging from their mouth, their nose and their eyelashes. The ice had stuck and clung and froze wherever there was moisture.

I felt my breath catch in my throat.

Some of them had their clothes ripped, as though they had been assaulted. There was no smell of death in the back of that freezing lorry, and yet death was everywhere.

I felt myself sink forward, as if I had been punched in the stomach.

And then I straightened up and turned back at the street.

‘We need help in here now!’

Paramedics were already running towards the lorry.

I stepped back to let them inside.

I looked down at Edie Wren, her notebook still in her hand as she bent at the waist, her hand pressed up against the shuttered window of the dim sum place, waiting to retch. Nothing happened. She straightened up and stared at me, her freckled face even paler than usual.

We nodded at each other.

I turned back to the paramedics. They were at the far end of the lorry, working back to back, each crouching over the woman closest to the cab.

DCI Whitestone stood at the open doors of the lorry, staring into the darkness. She shook her head as her eyes took in the unmoving women, her gaze settling on their torn clothes.

‘What the hell happened in here?’

Then Edie was by her side.

She had something in her hands.

‘I’ve found passports,’ she said. ‘From the cab. Under the dashboard. How many bodies you got in there, Max?’

I did a quick count. There were six of them on either side.

‘Twelve,’ I said.

Edie was flipping through the passports.

‘Are you sure there’s only twelve?’

‘I’m sure.’

Edie shook her head.

‘But I’ve got thirteen passports.’

‘Count again,’ Whitestone said. ‘Both of them. The bodies and the passports.’

I counted the women in the lorry. Edie counted the passports in her hand. The passports were of blue and red and green. These women were from everywhere.

‘Turkish, Serbian, Nigerian,’ Edie said. ‘Syrian, Syrian, Syrian. Afghan, Iraqi, Iranian. Pakistani, Chinese, Somalian.’ She held them up to me. ‘And another Turkish,’ she said. ‘There are definitely thirteen passports.’

‘And there are twelve women in here,’ I said.

‘So who’s missing?’ Whitestone said.

I shook my head, and turned towards the medics as they moved down the lorry.

‘Dead,’ one said, not looking round.

‘Dead,’ the other replied.

They moved on.