It started at the end of the summer holidays, Kian signed, his shoulders slumped. We all got new phones; they were left in our rooms for us, with a note telling us not to tell anyone about the phone. Since then we’ve all had messages from someone called Joe.

Part of me felt vindicated that I’d been right about the kids having two phones each, but I didn’t enjoy the feeling. If only someone had spotted it sooner, maybe Steve’s grooming of Leon could have been prevented.

Kian had paused for a moment and looked at Sasha.

It’s okay, tell the detective the truth, she told him reassuringly.

With me, it started off friendly, Kian explained. He was asking about football and what I like to do at the weekend. But then it got weird. He was asking me questions like if I like to touch myself and if I’d take photos of myself with no clothes on and send them.

‘Did it worry you, a stranger texting you?’

He said it was a wrong number, at first. Kian hung his head, clearly embarrassed that he’d fallen for a lie. The first text was asking for someone called Matt. I replied and said he had the wrong number, he apologised, and then we started chatting.

Singh nodded. ‘Okay. Did you tell anyone about Joe?’

Kian shook his head vehemently. Not at the time. It was only a couple of weeks ago when we realised we’d all been talking to Joe.

‘How did you all find out?’

When I saw Leon texting him, Kian replied. I asked him about Joe, and he wouldn’t tell me at first. But when I told him I used to get messages from someone called Joe too, we started talking. Then I told Bradley and he was really angry. He admitted he’d got a new phone too, then he asked the girls and we all talked about it. We asked a couple of the other residential kids, the ones who aren’t in care and just board on a weekly basis, and they didn’t know what we were talking about, so we knew it was just the five of us. It’s stupid, I thought I was the only one. We all did.

‘Why were you angry?’ Singh asked, turning to Bradley.

The older boy slouched in his chair and grimaced before replying. I thought it was something to do with Leon. I’ve always told Kian not to give out his information, yet this Joe seemed to know all about him, what school he went to, what team he supported, shit like that. I knew he wouldn’t have done it, so I thought maybe Leon had given our information to someone he knew.

‘Your information as well?’