Sarah Collins is waiting by the intercom in front of locked metal gates. ‘The owners are away. There’s a caretaker who has a key, apparently, so we’re trying to get in touch with him.’

Shivering in the cold, I pull my coat tightly around me. ‘Where is she?’

Sarah’s voice is grim. ‘In the gardens. When we couldn’t get any reply from the house, Milsom and Edwards found a way in through the woods – there’s a fence that’s easy to climb over. I assume that’s how Hollie got in.’

‘Can you show us?’

We walk in silence further down the lane, and then Sarah turns in to a stretch of woodland. After a couple of minutes, we reach a fence. We climb over into the large gardens, and I try to establish where we are in relation to the rest of the village.

Glimpsing a roof through the trees, I frown. ‘Is that the Buckleys’ house?’

‘I think so. She’s just through here,’ Sarah says quietly.

All the time we were searching, there’d been hope. But as I cross the gardens in front of the old farmhouse, then follow Sarah through a hedge into a smaller enclosed part of the garden, all hope is gone. I notice her hair first – long and spread out around her as she lies face down in the pool in front of us.

‘She was under the leaves, ma’am.’ As Milsom speaks, I notice the piles of leaves scraped back around the edges of the pool. ‘She must have fallen in. She was invisible until we cleared them as the water had frozen over her and the leaves had settled on top.’

As I stand there, I shiver. She’s wearing the jeans and jacket Stephanie described, but only as Milsom speaks do I notice the ice encasing her body, her hair, so that only the back of her head protrudes above it.

‘We should inform her parents.’ Sarah’s voice is flat.

‘Not yet. We need to be sure of how this happened.’ Hearing voices, I turn towards the house where I see two more officers making their way across the garden towards us. ‘They must have found a key.’ Two more men come into view carrying a stretcher.

There’s silence as we stand there while Hollie’s body is photographed before the ice is broken and it’s removed from the water.

‘I’ll go and see her parents.’ Sarah nods as I speak, her eyes grave.

Emerson comes with me as I make my way back to my car, steeling myself. Many things about this job aren’t easy, but the worst of all is breaking bad news. When you tell a parent that their child isn’t coming back, you know that you’re destroying their life as they knew it – their hopes, their dreams for the future.