‘She called the house.’ It is almost a whisper, coming from behind Fran’s hands. She lowers them to her lap, her cheeks blazing red as she gets to her feet to stand in front of Dominic. The fire in her eyes is back. ‘She called here, and she said she could help. I just wanted to see what she said. Surely that’s better than doing nothing?’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Dominic scrubs his hands over his face, ‘how could you be so stupid, Fran? She was probably from the fucking Daily Mail! I have to get out of here.’ He snatches up his car keys from the coffee table and slams his way out of the house. I hear the sound of his engine revving, and then a squeal as he peels out of the driveway. Fran rushes from the room with a sob, and I step forward to go after her, but Kelly lays a hand on my arm.

‘Leave her for a second,’ she says, ‘let her go upstairs and cry for a bit. She’s hurting.’

I nod, in two minds about things. Half of me wants to go and comfort Fran, the other half is relieved that I don’t have to.

‘What do you make of all this?’ Kelly asks, looking down at the squiggles she’s made in her notebook. ‘All that, “you know where she is” business.’

‘I don’t know.’ I am reluctant to say anything much in case I accidentally incriminate myself. ‘Maybe that wherever Laurel is, when we find her, it’ll be somewhere that is familiar to one of them? I’ve never really believed in this sort of stuff if I’m honest.’

‘Hmmm.’ Kelly doodles in the corner of the notepad, an intricate swirl that fills one section. ‘You can talk to me you know, Anna. As a friend. Not a police officer. If you wanted to, I mean.’

‘Thanks. But I really don’t know what that could have meant.’

‘You don’t think it was weird? Her saying that Laurel knows who took her, and that they know where she is?’

‘That’s if she was even telling the truth. You know half the time these people make things up, just to extort money from desperate people.’ Kelly’s words give my skin a tight, itchy feel as if they have burrowed into my bones. I push the thought of the shiny blonde hair, still wrapped in a tissue and hidden in my drawer, to the back of my mind. ‘Dominic is probably right.’ Someone isn’t who they say they are. I shake the thought away and get to my feet. ‘She probably was from the Daily Mail. I hope you people are prepared to deal with the fallout if she is.’

Drawing a line firmly between us and them, between me and Kelly, I leave the room, not waiting to hear her response.