Ajay was always going on about her diet and lack of exercise, and it was true that she could eat more healthily. She worked long hours, often under great pressure, and ate crap all day; had promised him more than once to swap the unhealthy snacks for fruit or nuts.

But when he tried to snatch the bag she whipped it out of his reach and shooed him away. ‘Let me get on.’

‘Wait, you don’t have a television?’ Lolly shook her head in disbelief as Ajay passed her desk. ‘That’s just weird.’

Clicking open a browser with the only two fingers that weren’t sticky with salt, she typed in ‘the Bad Place’. A list of articles filled the screen. Sasha read the various reports, familiarizing herself with the official facts of the investigation.

Twenty-six years ago, six teenagers from a local youth club were sitting in a minibus on the seafront, waiting to be taken home after a day trip. The youth worker who accompanied them jumped out of the vehicle to go to the toilet. When he returned less than five minutes later, the vehicle was gone.

There was a nationwide hunt for the six:

Karin McCarthy.

Michelle Dormand.

Becky Haskell.

Paul Ferdinand.

Simon Parkin.

Lydia Tide.

Six children were taken that day… But only five came back.

Sasha felt a personal connection to the events of that tragic night. She had just joined the force as a probationary PC when the kids – filthy, malnourished and terrified – were brought to the station following their escape. Karin, Paul, Michelle and Lydia; Simon had been taken to hospital.

Sasha desperately wanted to put an arm around them all, but the kids were hurried into separate interview rooms. Even at the time she didn’t like how they were treated, and in the aftermath it became clear that investigating officers initially suspected the teenagers of making up the abduction, believing the whole thing was an elaborate teenage prank. Sasha only had to look into the traumatized faces of those kids to see that wasn’t true.

For a couple of minutes, Karin McCarthy was left in a corridor outside an interview room, and Sasha was told to wait with her. She was struck by how small Karin seemed. Sasha was only a few years older than her, still just a teenager herself, but Karin looked many years younger as she sat staring at the opposite wall.

A lost and broken little girl.

Sasha lifted her eyes to the ceiling now, trying to remember what she had said to her.

You’re safe now, something like that. You’re safe and sound.

But Karin had just stared at the wall.

Then Sasha had told her… that’s right, that’s what she’d said, it came back to her now… she had touched the back of Karin’s hand and said, we’ll find Becky, I promise, she’ll be safe.