Hand to my mouth, I click on the first link, the one from 1995, an article from a newspaper – not a tabloid, but not far off – the headline proclaiming, ‘MAN ARRESTED OVER KIDNAPPING OF LITTLE KATRINA.’ Kidnap? Even though Jess told me herself, I didn’t really think that Mr Snow would be capable of something like that – I thought, hoped, that it was merely idle gossip. Quickly, I start to scan the article, getting the main gist of things. There isn’t a lot of information, but it seems as though Mr Snow really did kidnap a little girl, named Katrina. Who was five years old at the time, close enough to Laurel’s age. Armed with a fraction more information, I delve deeper into the internet, piecing together facts – or alleged facts – from different sources, trying to make up the main picture. It seems that on a damp, chilly October evening in 1995, Mr Snow picked up little Katrina, and never took her home again. He was married at the time to Emira, Katrina’s mother. They were separated and according to her, she had allowed him to spend time with Katrina over the first weekend of the October half term, with the condition that he returned her to her home early on Monday morning. Monday morning came and went, and Katrina never arrived. What came after was a nationwide manhunt, searching for little Katrina, who, according to her mother, was in the hands of an unstable man, intent on destroying the last tiny vestiges of the relationship they had had together.

I read in horror, one hand pressed to my mouth, about the search, the way he had just vanished and Katrina along with him, pictures of Emira appealing to him to return Katrina filling my screen. She is dark, pretty, Arabic . . . Turkish, maybe? She is less held together than Fran, her eyes red and swollen, her distress evident in every photograph, in every paper, her clothes rumpled as though she has slept in them. Finally, I reach the end. A picture of George Snow being led away in handcuffs, a jacket thrown over his head to shield his face from the lens of the paparazzi, as in another, Emira clutches Katrina, her face screwed up with relief, tears of joy streaming down her cheeks. I zoom in on the picture, examining every detail. Snow’s head is bowed, and I can’t make out his features clearly, but I recognise something about him, the way he holds himself, maybe. It’s definitely him, the Mr Snow that I encouraged Laurel to speak to because it was polite.