‘The owner?’ asked someone.

‘Reported it stolen from Canvey yesterday morning,’ said Craig.

‘A forensics team is working on the van,’ continued Sasha. ‘So the question is, who did Sammi arrange to meet in Westcliff? And is it the same person who abducted her?’

‘A boyfriend?’ asked Lolly. ‘She was going to see another mate?’

‘Maybe it’s a random abduction,’ said Craig. ‘Someone driving along, waiting for an empty street and a vulnerable kid.’

‘It’s a possibility.’ Sasha stopped in front of the whiteboard where she had neatly written a timeline. ‘We’ve a lot to do, lovely people, so let’s get going.’

Most of the rest of the day was spent bashing the phones and drawing up the main lines of enquiry, as Sasha put in place her investigative strategy. The vehicle had been moved to the station and a forensic team was swarming over every inch of it, photographing, bagging evidence, searching for prints.

She spoke to the county’s search advisors. A PolSA search was being organized for the Westcliff street where Sammi had been snatched, and the surrounding tangle of streets near where the van was abandoned would be meticulously combed for evidence, and CCTV footage collected. Door-to-door interviews in the neighbourhood where Sammi was last seen were due to begin imminently.

A Family Liaison Officer was assigned to Alan and Jessica Manning to keep them informed on the progress of the investigation, and to help the parents cope with the trauma of the disappearance of their child. But the FLO would also provide Sasha with information about Sammi’s relationship with her parents and feed back personal details that could shed light on her disappearance.

Officers were currently at the Manning household, bagging up some of Sammi’s belongings – notebooks, a diary – and taking away her devices, a laptop and tablet, which would be sent to Chelmsford for examination by the Digital Forensic Unit.

Sasha faced a long afternoon holed up in the meeting room adjacent to the Major Incident Team suite of offices. On sunny days it got insanely hot in that glass-partitioned room so the door was propped open with a chair, to little effect.

There was a strategy meeting with the Essex Police Missing Person Liaison Officer and the Missing From Home Manager, and Sasha spoke with county social services. More comfortable padding about the office in her bare feet, she left her shoes under her desk.

Someone did a coffee run and brought Sasha back a milky latte, her third of the day. She finally managed to eat lunch in the middle of the afternoon, wolfing down a coronation chicken sandwich, another bag of crisps and, in an attempt to convince Ajay she was eating more fruit, some red grapes.