‘I know Detective Pakinga is no longer on the case. But after seeing her challenging Madison on her livestream, Yani insisted on speaking only to her. And since you were apparently uncontactable . . . Yani is my daughter.’

‘It’s alright, Yani,’ said Gabriella. ‘Con is going to hear you out, and we’re going to look into it, but Madison will never know you spoke to us.’

‘Gabriella —’ began Con.

‘Do you know something about Jasmine?’ interrupted Murphy.

‘Yes,’ said Yani. ‘I do.’

Con sat back down.

Yani’s voice trembled as she spoke, looking at the ground. ‘Well . . . I’ll start from the start. See, we were all in this group chat together.’ Yani looked up at Murphy, then at Con, then to her feet. ‘It’s called . . . the Honcho Dori Club . . .’

‘Honcho Dori?’ said Con.

Yani opened her mouth but nothing came out.

‘Bring up the screenshots,’ said Gabriella kindly, ‘and I’ll explain it.’

Yani nodded, pulling her phone out of her pocket and beginning to scroll.

‘Pastor Hugh made contact with me,’ said Gabriella. ‘Before, Yani was worried that anyone she spoke to would go back to Madison, that she would be targeted. She’s been targeted by Madison before, remember? But then she saw me confront Madison.’ She looked smugly at Con.

‘Targeted how?’ said Murphy. ‘What was Madison going to do, Yani?’

‘The nudes . . .’ said Con.

Yani’s cheeks went red. She shook her head, glanced at Gabriella, then kept scrolling through her phone.

‘The Honcho Dori Club is an online chat group that Madison set up. The messaging app lets the girls use pseudonyms – it was supposed to be an anonymous support group for self-harm,’ said Gabriella. ‘You know, like cutting?’ Yani handed Gabriella the phone, and she handed it on to Con.

‘Cutting is a big thing at our school,’ said Yani in a small voice.

‘Even Jasmine?’ said Murphy, voice strained.

‘Even Jasmine,’ said Yani.

‘Self-harm is more common than you’d think,’ said Pastor Hugh. He reached out and grabbed his daughter’s hand. ‘It’s not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of distress.’

‘Con . . . just . . . be careful, as you read,’ said Gabriella, her eyes on his.

Con looked at the first screenshot. The girls had nicknames in the chat, with Yani’s messages clear in a different colour. Her nickname was xxDogGodxx.

He swiped through the screenshots and his stomach began to churn.

At first there were messages of support from all the girls, with photos of self-harm injuries – bleeding cuts, on arms or thighs – with captions like: ‘Today was so hard. I couldn’t help myself . . .’ These prompted messages of love and support from the other members of the chat. ‘You’re strong, girl. You can do this!’ and ‘Ouch, that looks deep. Are you okay? Have you put something on it? You should talk to a teacher.’