He took out his notebook and started to prompt the couple to come up with a list of the places they had been with Izzy. For a few minutes, as with the Philipses, they seemed glad of the distraction, and came up with a fairly comprehensive list – Patrick had to write fast to keep up with them. But then their voices petered out into silence, as if they had only just realized the significance of why they were doing this.

Fiona stood up abruptly, stubbing out her cigarette into an overflowing ashtray on the table. She looked as though she was sleepwalking as she drifted over to a fruit bowl next to the fridge. Opening a cupboard above the counter, she took out a small flowery pink plastic bowl, ripped a banana from the bunch in the fruit bowl, peeled it, then took a dessert spoon from a cutlery drawer. Her husband gasped and half-rose in his chair. ‘Fi—’ he said hopelessly, watching her use the edge of the spoon to slice the banana into the plastic bowl. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he and Patrick then watched her take out a pot of Hundreds and Thousands and shake the colourful sprinkles all over the banana segments.

Fiona shook more and more, until the banana was totally buried and the sugar sprinkles dusted the kitchen counter. There was something hypnotic, almost ritualistic about the way she did it. It made Patrick think of someone dropping earth on top of a coffin in a grave. A small white coffin . . .

For a moment they were all silent, until another audible sob from Max cut through the silence. Patrick jumped up and gently removed the now-empty cake decoration container from Fiona’s trembling hands. He took her by the shoulders and led her back to the table, helping her back into the chair.

‘Was that Isabel’s favourite snack?’ he whispered, forcing himself to look into her blank eyes.

She nodded and looked away.

‘Right, let’s see what we’ve got.’

Patrick and Carmella sat down together in the incident room back at the station, the pictures of the three children staring down at them from the wall, silently urging them on. Patrick still felt shaken from the meeting with the Hartleys, but at the same time was even more fired up, a cocktail of anger and sorrow making him utterly determined to catch the bastard who had done this. The prospect of seeing Frankie and Liam’s parents going through what the Hartleys were now suffering added a layer of desperation to his determination.