Turner is ferocious in her questioning, wanting to know where I was at every given moment over the last week, as if I might be Katie Collins’ killer. I’m not a killer, Ivy; I’m many things but not a killer. Her hair is annoying me. The straight black fringe etching a line across her forehead as if it was painted on. It doesn’t move even when she does. I don’t like her jacket either, it’s too casual for her important role. Her face, however, is gifted with perfect features, all sharp corners and piercing dark eyes, and her long lean body looks fit enough to catch an escapee. She won’t need it today. I’m not going anywhere. I have nothing to hide.

‘I cannot impress on you enough how important it is that you try to remember every little detail, anything at all that might help us find out what happened to Katie.’ She says Katie, Katie, Katie over and over again, appealing to my tender side, making the victim human to me. But she’s wasting her time. I’ve nothing to tell her.

‘I wish I could help you, detective. I wish there was something I could say that would help. But I never met the girl.’ Her eyes bore a hole in my head. I don’t think she’s even blinking. She makes me feel vulnerable, weak, in danger.

‘What about your family?’ she says. ‘Did you check to see if Katie tried to get in touch with any of them?’

‘I mentioned it to my brother and my father, but they know nothing about her.’

Suddenly I’m lying. I’m not telling her about Katie being at Dad’s house. If she starts bothering him, Danny will blame me, and anyway, I don’t even think Dad knows Katie was at his house. At least, he never mentioned it. The last thing that man needs is more crap to worry about. Mom’s deterioration is enough.

‘And your mother?’

‘My mother is in a nursing home. She has Alzheimer’s.’

‘Right.’

Fuck, I’m lying again. Katie Collins was at my mother’s nursing home but I don’t want to tell Turner because if she calls there this whole thing will blow up and everyone will get dragged into it. People who have nothing to do with it. Or should I tell her? Maybe Katie was followed by the van that followed me. The killer could be working in the nursing home and if I say nothing, it could stop them finding him.

‘I think she may have visited my mom,’ I say at last.

Turner’s eyes open wide. ‘Why do you think that?’

My hands are sweating, trembling below the table.

‘Rebecca, why do you think that?’

‘Her name was in the visitor’s book.’

‘When?’

‘I saw it the other day. I think she was there last Saturday.’