A certain hush fell when they got involved. It was as if by behaving as quietly as possible, some of the pain they dealt with might go away. It was a curious human trait. Kelly could never get her head around why anyone would want to work in the child abuse team. They watched the worst child porn and graded hideous images, from all over the world, all day long, every day. She had no idea how they did it.

Four members of the team arrived and they were shown into the incident room. It would have to be a separate inquiry, because they possessed certain specialist skills and resources that a regular crime team simply didn’t have the time or experience to process. All the images had been handed over, including the video footage. It would all have to be trawled through and matched to the child abuse image database (CAID), which aided police with grading images and identifying children.

They’d look for things like carpet patterns, bedspread fabrics, door sizes, points of interest out of windows or on reflections, and of course, the children’s faces. It was harrowing.

‘They’ve already identified, after a cursory scroll though, several other pupils at Sasha and Chloe’s school,’ Kate said as they walked into the incident room together.

Kelly shook her head. It made her blood boil. They were only touching the edge of a sordid world that she could never understand, and she had huge respect for the members of the team who sat waiting for them. They looked like ordinary coppers. They drank coffee, wrote notes and chatted about the snow storms. But what they saw must change them, Kelly thought.

She invited the team to talk them through what they intended to do with the images and files. Then she filled them in on her perspective from the ongoing case.

‘It looks like your list of potential saboteurs just got bigger,’ one said. It was no surprise that another department in the building was following the high-profile case of the helicopter crash.

Kelly acknowledged this as the case. It was not uncommon for parents and relatives of missing children, who suspected their child was taken by organised groups involved in the dark web, to start their own investigations and go after perps, vigilante style.

She had to consider everything.