‘But the only person who knew what you did, the only one who could tell anyone, was Sammi. She’d tell people about the calls, the assignations – hell, you sent her the photos – maybe she had already decided to tell her parents. So you went and did something really stupid, even by your own standards, Paul. You arranged for her to disappear. You waited till you had a bulletproof alibi, the dinner with Karin and the others, and then you got someone to snatch her off the street. Maybe one of your creepy online buddies.’

Paul lifted his hands to his face. ‘That’s not… no, it’s not…’

Craig was about to let rip again, but Sasha touched his arm, and he leaned back in his chair, frustrated.

‘Why on earth did you send those images to her?’ Sasha said quietly. ‘What were you thinking?’

He whispered, ‘I wanted her to see what a beautiful person she was.’

Sasha thought again of the video of Sammi singing – the way her fingers nervously rubbed her palms as her fragile voice entranced the audience, the way you could hear a pin drop when she had finished – and she had to take a moment to swallow the anger she felt surge inside her.

‘Tell us where we can find her, Paul.’

Eyes lowered to the table, he shook his head. ‘I would never…’

‘Help us bring her home before this all goes too far.’

He whimpered. ‘It’s not me.’

‘When you saw it was Sammi who had gone missing,’ said Craig, leaning forward again, ‘didn’t you think to come forward to tell us about your… relationship to the girl? You must have known we would find those photos?’

‘I was scared and confused. I deleted the images.’

‘Nothing gets deleted, Paul, not really,’ said Sasha. ‘Anyway, we’ve already got all the information we need to prosecute because the metadata on the photos you sent to Sammi told us everything. That the photos were taken on your camera, and posed in your house, in your wicker chair.’

Paul said something Sasha didn’t hear and she asked him to repeat it.

‘It was a wedding present,’ he said dismally. ‘The chair.’

And then Paul squeezed his eyes shut. His shoulders heaved as he wept.

‘Where’s the burner phone you used to call her on the evening she disappeared?’ asked Sasha.

‘I don’t even know what a burner phone is.’

‘It’s a pay-as-you-go, Paul, often used by people who don’t want their calls to be traced.’ She opened the folder and took out a copy of the texts sent between the two phones when he was in contact with Sammi, then placed them in front of him. ‘Tell me if you recognize these texts.’

He glanced at them. ‘I sent those, yes, but I threw the phone away months ago.’