She led me through the playroom – toys scattered on the floor, abandoned doll’s prams and trucks – until we reached the small reading room, softly lit, with beanbags and cushions all over the floor. Molly was sitting there cuddled into the nursery assistant, her eyes transfixed on the book that was being read to her, her thumb in her mouth. She looked so small.

‘Molly?’ I said softly.

She blinked and looked up at me, her bottom lip starting to tremble.

‘Mammy!’ she said. ‘The bad man said he was going to take you away.’

‘No one’s going to take me away, darling,’ I said, walking towards her and pulling her into a big hug.

She sobbed into my shoulder.

‘He said I wouldn’t ever, ever, ever see you again, Mammy.’

‘I’m here, baby,’ I soothed. ‘I’m here and no one’s ever going to take me away from you.’

‘Molly?’ I heard a voice behind me. ‘Did the man call you by your name?’

Molly raised her head and looked up to see Constable King standing in the doorway. At the sight of the police officer, she curled her body into mine.

‘Mammy, why’s the police here?’

‘They’re going to help catch the bad man and stop him from scaring any more children,’ I said. ‘You remember this lady, don’t you? She played My Little Ponies with you. Her name’s Eve.’

Molly eyed her suspiciously, but Constable King got down on her knees close to us so that she was on Molly’s level.

‘You can help me to catch the bad man and you’ll be a real hero,’ she said. ‘Like Wonder Woman.’

‘He called me Molly!’ she said, mimicking how he’d called her. ‘He said he knewed my mammy was called Rachel and he said she was a bad lady.’ Molly looked at me, her gaze low as if she was scared I’d be cross at what the man had said. ‘He said to tell my mammy she was in big trouble and he was going to take her away.’

‘Well, we’re not going to let him do that,’ Constable King said.

Her phone rang and I jumped. She nodded at me when she looked at the screen and then made her way outside to answer it. I felt torn between being there for Molly, who so clearly, desperately needed me, and also wanting to know if Beth was safe.

I was so angry with myself for leaving her alone in the first place. I shouldn’t have. How stupid could I be? But then again, I’d thought Molly was perfectly safe at daycare. Molly was clinging onto me for dear life.

‘He knewed my name, Mammy. I told him that I wasn’t aposed to speak to strangers, but he said he wasn’t a stranger. I even asked him for the secret special password.’