‘There’s something I need to show you,’ she whispered, before she changed her mind. Her mum looked like she was going to be sick.

‘Yes?’ the detective asked.

‘It’s on my phone . . . last photo on there . . . It’s of the person who took Frankie.’

Her mother and the detective both gasped, and her mum lunged for the iPhone in the bedside cabinet.

‘Tell me, Georgia. Tell me everything.’ The detective didn’t sound so calm now.

This was it, thought Georgia hazily. Now it was all coming out, it didn’t feel too bad. It was all like a dream, anyway, a half-waking nightmare. Nothing left to lose.

She forced herself to remember. She’d been on the loo at Alice’s; that was when she first got the idea . . .

It was a brilliant idea.

She could pay Jerome back – and buy a car to have driving lessons in with the leftover cash! She was dying to have a Mini Cooper, a red one with a black sunroof. The gripes in her stomach ceased. Georgia sat very still on the toilet, staring at the words ‘£100,000’ in bold black newsprint. It was a dead cert that if they were offering that for the other two missing kids, there’d be a similar reward if a third child went missing, maybe even more.

Frankie knew Georgia. She wouldn’t object if Georgia took her on a little adventure. Georgia had the keys to her parents’ flat in her pocket because that was where they’d filmed their movie. Her mum and dad never went to the flat. Every couple of months her mum muttered something about ‘getting round to renting it out again’ – but they didn’t need the money, so they never did get round to it, and the flat stayed empty. It was only five minutes’ walk from here.

It was a no-brainer.

Georgia felt a new and exciting rush of optimism. She’d found a solution! She flushed, washed her hands and crept back onto the landing and halfway back up the stairs towards Alice’s room. As she’d suspected, all had fallen silent, but when she listened hard she could hear a few little moans and gasps. Excellent.