Frankie sat on Helen’s lap. Even from the back of the church, Patrick could see that Helen kept her arms tightly wrapped around her daughter, who was wearing a pretty floral party dress, a little fabric flower resting in her black curls. It was a little unusual for a child so small to be allowed to come to a funeral, but Patrick was pretty sure that Helen wasn’t permitting Frankie out of her sight for a second. He couldn’t say he blamed her.

A child psychologist had talked to Frankie shortly after she’d been found, to ascertain how Penny had treated her and to ensure she hadn’t suffered any sexual abuse. The poor child had revealed a few disturbing details, about being locked in the dark and something about a ‘hurt’ kitten, and blood test results showed that Penny had been giving Frankie small doses of tranquillizers to keep her docile and, at the end, unconscious. Patrick instructed the psychologist to ask Frankie about the drawings of the face at the window, but Frankie’s answers were virtually incomprehensible. Something about how there was a ghost who lived in the lamp post outside and who looked in at her.

‘My assumption,’ the psychologist said, ‘is that Frankie spotted Penny watching her from outside the house. I asked Frankie if she likes to look out of her bedroom window at night and she said that she did.’

Indeed, the same neighbour who had spotted Larry the evening of Frankie’s abduction had confirmed that he had seen Frankie looking out of her window occasionally. Patrick was surprised that Penny would risk being seen by Sean – Helen had confirmed that the woman she knew as Marion had never, in the short time she’d known her, visited their house. But maybe she hadn’t been able to stop herself from standing outside, presumably in disguise, watching the family she was obsessed with. After all, she had seen Georgia take Frankie that night.

Patrick returned his attention to the here and now. Alice sat a little way along from Helen, Eileen and Frankie, Larry’s arms wrapped tightly around her, rubbing her back as if she was really cold. She kept her face buried into the side of his shiny cheap grey suit jacket, as though unable to face the sight of her father’s lily-covered coffin in her line of vision whenever she looked up.

The church filled up around him to the accompaniment of that soft funereal organ noodling that always slightly set Patrick’s teeth on edge. There were a lot of couples there, presumably friends of the Philipses, thirty-somethings looking uncertain in shiny dresses or stiff suits. A few went to the front and spoke softly to Helen – he could see her hat dipping in acknowledgement – but most slid silently into pews. Many of the women were already weeping.

God, he hated funerals.