Taking Marty’s old laptop from off the bench, I tucked it under my arm and went upstairs to Bella’s bedroom. I propped her fairy pillows against the wall and settled myself there, breathing in her scent. Lulu wasn’t on top of the pillows; she must be lost in the sheets at the bottom of the bed. Three days and twelve hours. Tinker Bell, where are you? Please come back to me.

Opening the old laptop, I skyped Phoebe. When she smiled on the screen, I wanted to reach through the distance and hug her tight. The background showed that she was home in her terrace in Fulham, out of the hospital at last. In ten minutes, I’d told her everything, hoping that she could make more sense of it than me. Instead, she brought up the websites.

‘Have you told the police about them?’ she asked. ‘They’re all talking about Bella now—especially that main one.’

That website was a train for all the trolls to climb aboard, spraying their filth from the windows. Ranting about murder and child abuse and frying us in an electric chair. If Bella’s disappearance were connected to the site, what would they do to Bella? Take out their hatred of us on her? Maybe they’d transport her to another country, give her a new set of parents and tell her we were dead.

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘They’ve got their technical team on it again.’ The website had turned me into a blubbering mess, pushed me over the edge into depression. Forced Marty to change his name so he could keep working. Whoever had set it up had covered their tracks well. I clicked through the possibilities like an old-fashioned slide show. Yvette Tobin, the mad physio. The four sets of parents whose children had died under Marty’s care. Nurse Natalie. One of the reporters who had crucified us. Any of the medical staff who blamed Marty. Or, as the police had suggested years ago, someone who was obsessed with the case and had taken a special interest but had no actual link to us. A web sleuth with a confused sense of justice. It could be anyone.

As Phoebe spoke about the websites, the coldness enveloped me yet again. The same cold that Bella was feeling. Maybe it was time to give up the search and focus on abductors.