The light is good in her room, and it’s the archetypal teenage girl’s bedroom—bed, desk, wardrobe, ruff les, posters, lamps—which is exactly what I want.

Natalia shows me on her laptop how easy it is to find out where someone lives. We sit at her desk and gape.

‘How did you found out this guy was a suspect?’

‘He was mentioned in this thing called the Echo Files, under a fake name, but then these web sleuths found out his real name.’

She takes me through the steps, his crimes, the court documents, the phone directory.

‘And then I went to his house,’ she says.

I’m so shocked that I hit her on the arm, harder than I intended.

‘Ouch! Abusive, Cardell.’

‘What the hell? Are you joking?’ But I can see from her face that she’s not. ‘When? Why? What happened?’

‘Shh, calm down. You’re the first person I’ve told.’ Natalia snaps her computer shut. ‘I need you to be more chill, Chloe.’

I inhale deeply, summoning the type of fake inner calm I use when Sam is being a brat. Natalia wears a deep scowl so I tone it down. ‘When was this?’

‘School holidays.’

‘Why did you do it?’

Her eyes dart about; she swivels back and forth on her computer chair. ‘I just wanted to do something. I felt an unbearable itch that I needed to scratch.’

I try not to let any dread creep into my voice.

‘What happened?’

She puffs out her cheeks and lets a long whoosh of air go.

‘He was there,’ she says. ‘He saw me scoping out his house and he confronted me. I’ve never seen a creepier man in my whole life, and that’s saying a lot.’

‘Did you talk to him?’

‘We yelled insults and accusations at each other a bit and at first it felt good to tell him how evil he is, but then I woke up and realised the madness of standing metres away from a predator and a convicted criminal and I got out of there quick smart.’

She looks pale even talking about it.

‘And when you saw him, did you think that he could be Doctor Calm?’

‘No.’ She fiddles with the edge of her desk. ‘I don’t think they’re gonna find him, are they?’

You’d think the reward or Yin’s death would have ramped things up a bit, made things happen, but it doesn’t seem that way.

‘I don’t think so, or maybe not for a long time,’ I admit. ‘And so that means he wins, and in a way we lose.’

Natalia watches me silently, her eyes deep and dark as rock pools. It’s hard to know what she’s thinking.

My phone beeps. ‘It’s them. They’re almost here. They took the wrong tram.’

Natalia rubs her hedgehog hair.