Amelia gasped. ‘No! I’ll tell you but you can’t tell this stuff to anyone else.’

‘I can’t make that promise, Amelia. If what you tell me is part of the answer that helps me find Ms O’Brien’s killer, or Mr Campbell’s attacker, I may have to testify in court about it. That’s the reality of my job.’

‘But it won’t be on the news?’

‘If it’s in certain paperwork or said in court, a reporter can report it. But we can request that you remain anonymous if that helps?’

Tears began rolling down the sides of Amelia’s face. ‘Mum would still figure out it was me.’

‘Again, we can stop whenever you need to.’

She shook her head again and stared Jake in the eye. ‘Just ask.’

‘Charlotte said there was a time—when you were around twelve —that you went into your room and stopped coming out.’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you able to tell me why?’

Her tears continued to fall like rain. ‘Ms O’Brien took away what’s between my legs.’

Jake wasn’t sure whether to try to smile reassuringly or look sad in empathy. It didn’t matter—Amelia had turned away from him to stare at the wall. ‘Were you awake when it was done?’

‘I just woke up and everything between my legs hurt so much I couldn’t breathe.’

‘Was anyone else there, except Ms O’Brien?’

Whimpering, she shook her head.

Jake tried to think as quickly as he could of what he needed to ask next. ‘Do you remember what happened immediately before you went to sleep?’

‘It was all fuzzy. I couldn’t remember how I ended up in my bed, only that I woke up like that.’

Was it Ava who did this to Amelia? Where would she have learned the skills to excise large sections of flesh and suture them so neatly?

‘Are you sure it didn’t happen at a time when Ms O’Brien was on holiday and Mr O’Brien was looking after you?’

‘With the pain I had to just lie there. I couldn’t get out of bed. It was Ms O’Brien who always came in to bring me things.’

‘Did she say anything?’

‘She just changed the towels under me, and fed me, and gave me pills and things to drink to make me sleepy. She knew. She was the only one there. She did it.’

Was Ava involved in some kind of bizarre cult with a ritual tradition of mutilating girls? Or was it an isolated case of the abused becoming the abuser?

‘How long did it take you to recover?’

‘A long time, I think, because by the time I could go back to doing lessons in the kitchen with Charlotte she was really mad at me. She said I was being mean to her because I wouldn’t come out of my room anymore.’