Home for Lila was a studio flat that was dominated by a sofa bed she and Ruby used to share. The girls had done their best to make the place homely, covering most of the grotty carpet with a brightly coloured rug and by pinning posters and sparkly scarves to the peeling wallpaper, but an underlying sense of dilapidation lingered nonetheless.

‘I still can’t believe she’s gone,’ said Lila, licking the edge of a Rizla. ‘I should’ve noticed sooner she was missing but I thought she was in London, ’cause that’s often where she took herself off to when things got a bit much.’

‘In what way?’ asked Belmar.

‘Sometimes doing this makes you feel like you aren’t human, that you’re no better than the shittiest animal. You’ll get a john who won’t even look at you, who acts like you’re disgusting or worse, and it makes you wanna die inside. I’ve been doing this for –’ Lila paused and did a weary count on her fingers – ‘eleven months but Ruby was longer than me and it was getting to her.’

Maggie pulled two printouts from her bag and laid them neatly on her lap, face down. Lila eyed them warily.

‘I want to ask you about Rushbrooke,’ said Maggie. ‘Did you know Ruby was taking clients into the school grounds?’

‘No chance. An’ before you ask, I ain’t never done that. Not where kids go,’ she said, her nose wrinkling in disdain. ‘I’ve been nearby, though – sometimes when a john don’t have a car we can use, I’ll take them to that new estate, the one that’s half built.’ She caught Maggie’s eye. ‘Don’t you look all hoity-toity at me. It’s not illegal, what I do. You should know that, being the police an’ all.’

‘Yes, I am aware prostitution is legal,’ said Maggie, ‘but owning or managing a brothel and pimping out girls isn’t. It’s illegal if you’re being procured to have sex with strangers for money. Who do you work for, Lila?’

‘I shan’t tell you and you can’t make me. Besides, my clients call me direct so really I’m pimping myself out, aren’t I?’

‘Did Ruby work for the same person?’

‘I told you, I won’t say.’

‘Are you sure Ruby never mentioned going inside the school with a client?’

‘No.’

‘Have you ever seen Ruby with this man?’

Maggie found the head shot she’d printed off the Internet and held it up.

Lila’s features shuttered. ‘No.’

She was clearly lying but, instead of pushing her, Maggie nudged her foot against Belmar’s – his cue to change tack.

‘Was it because of her hair she was nicknamed Ruby?’ he asked.

It was a question Maggie had primed him to pose, because she already knew the answer but wanted to see how Lila would react.

‘Yeah, I suppose.’