I have printed off several articles at the library. Anything mentioning the girl’s name, anything mentioning any suspects at the time, wondering whose name I might see there. I didn’t read the papers back then, I just saw them lying around in waiting rooms, or walked past them in the shops. Rumours are more exciting at that age. It occurs to me how much everything has changed. I pay the librarian for the prints and she looks at me suspiciously as she wrestles the thick stack from the printer tray and hands them over, glancing at the first page.

‘I remember this case. Why are you looking at that?’

‘I used to know her. I was the same age as her when she went missing. It was a dreadful shock at the time. This other girl going missing has brought everything back and I just wanted to read about her again,’ I say, overcome with guilt over the past, feeling bad for opening the cupboards and pulling out the skeletons.

‘Terrible business. You just don’t expect that kind of thing around here. I just can’t believe it’s happened again. Why anyone would copy that monster.’

‘What makes you think it was a copy?’ I ask.

‘Well, it’s just so similar, isn’t it? The girl was last seen at the bus stop – funny, I never thought about that before. But they got the guy who did it last time, didn’t they? So someone must have copied him …’

She rambled on but I had stopped listening. Did they get the right man last time? We were all so sure when it happened, but I’m not so sure now. I don’t think any of us really knew what was happening right under our noses. That’s what happens in a place like this. People buy into the image of perfection and everyone is willing to look the other way to maintain it. Once someone is persona non grata then they become an easy person to scapegoat. Now that I think about it, maybe that’s what happened back then.

‘Yes, I guess it is very similar,’ I say, as though I hadn’t noticed the similarities of the actual case.

‘What was her name again? The one that went missing back then?’

‘Hannah Torrence.’

‘That’s the one. Awful thing that was.’

There were only two people in the frame for the disappearance of Hannah Torrence: a teacher at the school, James Morrell, and one of my classmates, Jason Evans. I remember both of them; I suspected both of them. When something like that happens in your town it makes you question everything you know, everyone you know. You wonder if you can ever really know people at all. So many secrets, so many lies.