What was she doing here, at 1 A.M., in this weird lemon-painted room, when she should have been sated and snug in bed with Sean, in the deep sleep of the wine-tipsy post-orgasm? She longed to be able to rewind time to that moment before she’d stepped into Frankie’s room, back when everything had been alright. Further than that, to the moment when she and Sean had gone out. She would rewrite the script, change the future. But this was real life, and time could not be rewound, reality could not be altered. At that second, she felt in every cell of her body that if any harm had come to her baby girl, she would kill herself. Continuing to live just wouldn’t be an option.

‘DI Lennon,’ he said, lighting up one of those water-vapour fake cigarettes.

‘Can I call you Helen? Sorry for the inhospitable time of night.’

‘Helen’s fine,’ she muttered, watching the end of the plastic fag glow green as DI Lennon sucked hard on it. She had to sit on her hands to try and stop them from shaking, and she could feel the imprint of the diamond from her engagement ring digging into the underside of her left thigh.

She pressed harder, welcoming the pain.

‘I’m sure you appreciate that the sooner we can build a complete picture of what we’re dealing with here, the greater the chances are of finding Frankie quickly.’

The sound of her daughter’s name spoken by this man sent a current through her body. He had a nice voice, deep and kind, with a softening trace of a West Country accent in there somewhere. Patrick seemed to notice the tiny little involuntary jerk she gave, and she saw the sympathy in his face.

Under normal circumstances, she thought, he would make her feel flustered. A woman in uniform walked in and handed her a coffee that she didn’t recall asking for, and as she sipped it, she worried irrationally that he looked more like the bass player in a rock band than a detective: hard-bodied, if slightly slope-shouldered. She focused on his face instead and saw that, under the handsomeness, it was still boyish, and kind – the sort of man you can visualize in a school portrait, aged about five, looking exactly the same but with more hair, softer skin and smaller teeth.

‘Do you have kids?’ she blurted, leaning forwards, willing him to reply in the affirmative. He paused before nodding his head, and her aching eyes filled with fresh tears.

‘But even if I didn’t, I would still do everything possible to get Frankie back for you, Helen,’ he said, and the kindness and urgency in his voice made her tears spill in two straight lines down her cheeks and drip off her chin. ‘Let’s make a start, shall we?’ He clicked on a voice recording machine.