‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know what I know now – did I?’

A2457 H TST GABRIELLA DARRELL RE: INVISIBLE FRIEND MISC

Gabriella – just call her Gaby, she won’t answer to anything else – Darrell was a stolid little girl who was either preternaturally dull, on Ritalin, or biding her time to wreak an appalling revenge on her mother for being clingy and overbearing. Her mother Clarissa was short and unhealthily thin with a narrow intense face and, as far as I could tell, no sense of humour whatsoever.

The barn conversion where they lived just beyond the village of Orelton was seriously nice, its spacious rooms laid out in an uncluttered linear sequence with big windows framed in hardwood and lots of earth tones. It was a Channel Four sort of house with a Channel Four vibe. Mr Darrell was CEO of a mid-sized building services company based in Birmingham.

I didn’t need to inquire into their lives since there was already twenty-plus pages worth of information on him and his family, because Gaby claimed to be BFFs with Nicole Lacey and so they had been thoroughly TIEd, IIPed and statemented. West Mercia Police had even gone so far to as check Gaby’s claims about her relationship with the missing girls – and had concluded that they’d been BFs maybe, but BFFs? No way!

‘I’d like to ask you about Nicole’s invisible friend,’ I said.

Gaby opened her mouth, but before she could answer her mum spoke instead.

‘Why do you want to know about that?’

Gaby rolled her eyes and sighed – see what I have to put up with? I winked back and pretty much from that point on we were allies.

‘We’re following up any possible point of contact,’ I said. ‘We like to make sure we haven’t missed anything first time round.’

‘I see,’ she said.

‘Gaby,’ I said. ‘When you talked to my colleague he asked you to make a list of everyone that Hannah and Nicole might know – do you remember that.’

Gaby nodded.

‘And you said that Nicole had an invisible friend – is that right?’

Gaby nodded again. Her mother opened her mouth to speak, but I held up a finger to stop her. She gave me a poisonous look, but she kept her mouth shut.

‘But an invisible friend is not the same as an imaginary friend, is it?’

Gaby nodded – she obviously planned to make me work for this.

‘Did Nicole’s friend have a name?’

Gaby screwed up her face realising, reluctantly, that she was going to have to communicate. ‘Princess Luna,’ she said.

I looked at her mother to see if this meant anything to her, but she shook her head. I turned back to Gaby, but before I could ask another question she asked me why I was brown.

‘Gaby,’ said her mother in a shocked voice.

‘Because my mum’s from Sierra Leone,’ I said.

‘Where’s that?’ asked Gaby.