Jack kept his attention focused on Maisie. ‘Do you want an appropriate adult, Maisie? You don’t need one, but of course your mum can come if you’d like. It’s completely your choice.’

Maisie’s eyes twinkled and she headed upstairs. Jack turned to Mrs Fullworth. ‘DC Oaks will keep you company down here.’

When Jack got upstairs, Maisie was sitting on her old bed quietly waiting. This room was childish, as though stuck in a time-warp. The only mature things were several pieces of artwork torn out of a sketch pad and stuck up with sellotape but, to Jack’s untrained eye, highly accomplished. ‘Mum says this tracksuit makes me look like I belong in a young offenders unit,’ Maisie said.

Jack snorted, which immediately put Maisie at ease. ‘I can’t remember much about the night it happened.’

Jack nodded. ‘I’m going to try and help you but, if you can’t remember, it’s no problem.’ He didn’t want Maisie to think any less of herself than she already did. ‘Can you sit where you were sitting when you saw the intruder, please?’ Maisie scooted up the bed, until she was seated on top of the pillows. Jack then moved to her wardrobe and opened the door, so that the mirror reflected the stairway just outside Maisie’s bedroom. It was a shorter mirror than he’d expected, not quite full-length; to fit the whole person in, they’d have to be standing a good distance back from it.

Jack asked Maisie where the burglar was when she noticed them, and she directed him to the second stair down. This wasn’t helping: he needed to be seeing what Maisie was seeing. Jack shouted down to Oaks to join them, then told him to stand two stairs down while Jack moved to the bedside. He said, ‘May I?’ and Maisie got off the bed so he could sit where she’d been sitting.

‘You told my officer – this officer in fact, DC Oaks – that you thought the burglar was over six feet tall. You said that because DC Oaks told you that he was 5’11”, you thought the burglar seemed to be a couple of inches taller than him. Is all of that correct?’ Maisie nodded. Jack looked at Oaks in the mirror. His head was bowed in shame as his rookie interview mistake quickly sank in. ‘How about now, Maisie?’ Jack stood up and Maisie sat back down on the bed. ‘Look at DC Oaks in the mirror – lift your head up, Will – and tell me how much he differs in height from the burglar.’

Maisie grappled with the memory of that night and, as she took herself back in time, her breathing became more rapid.