The woman’s voice is low, and I have to strain slightly to hear her. Fran starts to recount the evening, starting from when she arrived at the field. Laurel had been excited about the bonfire all week, it had been all she had talked about, and I’d ended up leaving the house with her half an hour before we’d needed to, arranging to meet Fran at the field so she could finish getting ready in peace. Laurel had tugged on my hand all the way along the lane to the entrance, not even stopping for Mr Snow’s house at the top of the pathway – an older gentleman, who was often in his garden in the afternoons, and Laurel liked to pause and chat to him for at least five minutes, seeing as he quite often had lollies in his pocket. I think about the way she rushed along the pavement, excitement making her squeeze my hand, before she pulled away, eager to be the first in the gate and I feel my heart constrict in my chest. What if she’d fallen? What if a car had come speeding round the corner and almost hit her? Would I have held her hand a bit tighter then? Would I have made sure she was in my eyeline for the entire evening, instead of assuming that she’d caught up with Fran?

‘. . . and she just wasn’t there, was she, Anna?’ I am shaken out of my thoughts by Fran’s voice speaking my name.

‘And you are?’

‘Anna.’ I look over at DS Wright’s colleague, a slight woman with short blonde hair and a smattering of freckles across her nose, who stands poised with a small black notebook, as Wright waits for my answer. ‘Anna Cox. I’m . . . I’m Laurel’s nanny.’

‘And you brought Laurel here, earlier this evening?’

‘Yes. I walked here with her while Fran was getting ready. Laurel was excited, she wanted to get here as early as possible.’

‘And then . . . what? Can you run me through exactly what happened – when you first realised that Laurel wasn’t where you expected her to be?’

I see Fran glance in my direction as I open my mouth to speak, to repeat exactly what she has just told them. ‘Fran was going to the loo, and to get us a drink. Laurel said she was going as well, and she ran off after Fran. But then Fran came back, and Laurel hadn’t caught up with her.’ Guilt lies heavily in my stomach. Why hadn’t I watched? Made sure she reached Fran, kept my eyes on her until she grabbed her hand?