The first few did help: ‘God bless that little mite, and keep her safe. Please share her photo so that everyone can look for her,’ ‘My heart goes out to the family, hope she’s found soon,’ and many similar. But the next one made Helen catch her breath: ‘Those comments below should be deleted, they’re horrible. How can people be so cruel?’

What comments?

Fresh tears welling, Helen considered closing the laptop lid and walking away – but she knew she couldn’t, not without looking.

She scrolled down, and the vitriol she discovered in the next few remarks made bile rise in her throat.

‘I blame the parents. What were they thinking, going out and leaving a child to look after that little girl?’

‘Frankie’s mum and dad should be in prison – they DISGUST me. Leaving that child at home with a 15 year old’.

‘Someone told me they reckon the parents done it and they buried the body of that poor little baby in the park. THERE’S NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE!!!’

Her head sank onto her arms, and in the silence the only sound she could hear was the blood pounding in her ears.

After what could have been another minute or ten, unable to stop herself, anger coursed through her, replacing the lethargy of grief. She sat up straighter and started writing a post on the Facebook wall, telling them who she was, typing so fast that her brain couldn’t keep up with her fingers.

‘It shocks and appals me that people, strangers, can come on here, people who know nothing about me or my family, and cast judgement upon us. Do you think we deserve it? That our beautiful little girl deserves to have been taken? Yes, I wish more than anything in the world that I hadn’t gone out that night, that we had never left her with her half-sister (although it’s completely legitimate for us to have done so. Fifteen is a legal and acceptable age to babysit other children, particularly family members). I fantasise that I have a remote control that will rewind time, take me back to the other evening and instead of going out with my husband – which I was perfectly entitled to do! – I had spent the evening cuddling my daughter and protecting her. Thank you to all the people who have offered support and sympathy – please, I urge you, to look for Frankie. To the people who slate me and my husband – I hope you are ashamed of YOURSELVES.’

She hit ‘enter’ before she could change her mind.

Within seconds, the page went crazy, comments flooding in, most agreeing with her, some questioning her identity, others backing up the words of the original trolls, berating her as if they were barely literate moral guardians of the universe. She sat back and watched the list of comments grow through teary eyes.