‘Funny turn or not, you’re going home,’ Jemima says. ‘If you feel 151better later, you can join the party tomorrow. But if you don’t leave now, that’s off too.’

The screen stares up at me, blank and empty.

‘Who was that in the picture?’ I say, leaning into foam.

‘Eh?’ Dominic says.

‘That picture you loaded up just before,’ I say. ‘The little girl. Who was it?’

I cough as my voice cracks. I know who it was. The past laps at me like a drug, pulling me backward, downward.

‘Here,’ Jemima says, jerking my coat in front of me. ‘Seriously, Marie. Put it on. I’ll walk you out, let’s go.’

‘Who was it?’ I say, louder this time. The soundproof walls bring my words back with the faintest of echoes. Who was it. Who was it. Who was it.

‘I don’t know,’ Dominic says, leaning forward to tap at the keyboard. ‘I’m not sure they all do, either. But they called her Baby Girl A.’

I brace against the wall as the picture flashes up again, scuffed and pixelated with age. I don’t have to stare at it to know I could fill in the gaps, complete the outline, rebuild the soul from the inside out. Except I was never given the chance, was I? Neither was she.

‘There’s Girl A, and Baby Girl A, if you can believe that,’ he continues. ‘The list takes in half of the fucking alphabet. Girl A’s evidence was at least in the public domain. But Baby Girl A wasn’t – because she was Minchin’s. So she, like everything else to do with him, was classified. That’s their smoking gun. That’s what my source says, at any rate.’

Something inside me collapses as I hear it, head dropping on my neck. I don’t need to see her again to remember. There’s nothing I’ll ever be able to forget about this. All the years I’ve spent trying are suddenly worth less than dust.

‘Come on.’ Jemima takes hold of my elbow. ‘Steady now, OK?’ I shrink into my coat as she wraps it around me, moving me like 152a mannequin, out of the newsroom and into the lift, silence like a cloak as we glide to the ground floor.

‘I’ll check in later, I promise,’ Jemima says as she leads me out to the waiting taxi. I nod dumbly as I fold myself into the back.

‘Where to, love?’