Everyone is quiet for a few seconds, running through, I imagine, the old monsters and bogeymen of their childhoods, and the new teenage ones as well. Serial killers, rapists, paedophiles, pornographers, public masturbators, flashers, angry guys we ghosted, creepy uncles, online stalkers.

‘The woman asked a lot of questions about her phone,’ Claire adds. ‘I thought maybe it’s missing?’

‘Yin had that silly cover she bought on Etsy, remember?’ Milla ventures a private smile to her friend, but something else is occurring to Claire.

‘Mil, did you message her that night?’ she says. ‘I did. I was asking about orchestra practise.’

Milla nods with wide eyes.

‘Imagine if he read your messages.’ Teaghan can barely hide how titillated this new idea makes her. ‘The kidnapper, I mean. He could be reading your private, personal messages, right now on Yin’s phone. Or looking at photos of you.’

Fresh horror on Milla and Claire’s faces. If I had a history of participation at Balmoral this is probably where I’d step in and tell Teaghan to stop being such a vulture. I look across at Lisbeth, and can see she’s thinking a similar thing. Natalia stabs her biro into the ground.

Teaghan must sense the tide threatening to turn against her, because she adds, ‘I mean, I’m just so distressed. Mum says we’re going to have PTSD from this.’

‘I’ve been thinking,’ someone says. ‘The man that’s keeping Yin has his hands full at the moment. So, in a way, we’re safer than ever.’

‘I heard that they were using GPS to track where she went,’ chimes in someone else.

‘Where did you hear that?’ Natalia sits up sharply, instantly alert, alert all along. Her eyes flash. I’m reminded of a predator moving into position. I lean as far forwards as I can without falling off the wall, Lisbeth too. Something awful builds in the quadrangle.

It’s easy to want something to happen, anything, even a fight. Something to break the tension, a wave to crash over us, letting us know that, yes, disaster has really struck.

The girl who made the comment—Tara or Kara or something like that—clearly regrets speaking. One word from Natalia, one look even, can cut some of these girls to ribbons.

‘Online,’ Tara/Kara mutters eventually. ‘Someone set up a private group. People are saying what they know, what they’ve heard. The teachers have been told not to talk to us, so how else are we supposed to figure out what’s going on?’

‘Did you write that email?’ someone calls out.

The girl closest to Lisbeth and I says in a low voice to her friend, ‘I’m going to walk home a different way every day. In case I’m being watched.’

‘Say whatever you want in your group.’ Natalia stands. ‘Send around those pointless chain emails, I don’t care. She’s not coming back.’