‘Her mother was screaming. She must have been just behind us when we got here. She might even have seen us running up here and wondered what the hell was going on. We got to the ward and one of the doctors was shouting at everyone, he wanted to know what the nurses had injected her with. They didn’t know what he was talking about. He kept shouting that she had been injected with something, there was blood on her arm, a fresh bunch of flowers between her legs and she was … she was gone. The doctor picked up the folder where all her observations were … It was Callie’s folder! He was so angry. I just stood back and watched it all play out. I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t even speak. That poor woman, her mother, she just collapsed in front of me. I couldn’t even help her. I’m a monster!’

‘It’s OK, Sharon. You—’

‘It’s not OK! I didn’t tell you everything. I didn’t tell you, I didn’t tell Danny either, and look what’s happened. Look what’s happened to my family!’

‘What have you not told me, Sharon?’

‘Find my Jamie … please!’ Sharon had been lost, her eyes down and opaque. Now they met Joel’s and the look of a beaten woman was starting to evaporate.

‘We’re doing all we can. If there’s something I need to know that helps us find him, Sharon …’

She was back to shaking her head, and it seemed to force out more words. ‘Callie. She was the first, OK … All her friends, she was the one who introduced them to that man. She didn’t know what she was doing! He … he gave her things. A new phone, iPad. She went on a shopping trip for clothes with vouchers but it wasn’t for nothing. She had to introduce this man into the lives of her friends, as an exchange. She didn’t know what for at first, she didn’t know what he was going to do!’

Joel was suddenly aware that they were both looming over her. He moved to one of the seats off to the right, the plastic squeaking under him. ‘And you knew about this?’

‘Not straightaway and when she did come to me it was too late. But she couldn’t live with it. I know that’s why she did what she did. She was hurting so bad and there was nothing I could do to make her feel any better. Then one of the mums called the police, Julia Kerner, she found out what was happening to her daughter and suddenly it was ten times worse. The pressure on my Callie. It was me, Inspector Norris. I told her not to talk to the police, not to tell them her part. It was two weeks after Julia called that she went to that park bench …’