‘Are you hurt?’ Angela asked.

Carly shook her head, ‘But Leah twisted her ankle and Marie has been vomiting.’

‘We’ll be getting you all checked over by a doctor when your parents are here, but first let’s get something sweet inside of you.’

Flimsy polystyrene cups of hot chocolate floating with clumps of powder were pushed into their freezing hands. Leah and Marie drained their drinks, not waiting until they had cooled. Carly couldn’t touch hers, her stomach a mass of worry. She didn’t know how to explain herself. She couldn’t make sense of how it all happened. One minute she was texting Dean while the twins were playing and then… Carly began to cry again. How could her parents ever forgive her?

The twins were on their third hot chocolate when the door creaked open. Her parents rushed inside. Leah and Marie ran over to their father and scrambled up his legs like monkeys climbing a tree. ‘Thank God. Thank God.’ Her stepdad balanced a twin on each hip. Carly’s mum cupped her face.

‘Do you hate me?’ Carly asked.

‘Hate you? No! If anything, I hate myself. I should have been at home with you all. This wasn’t your fault.’

The twins wriggled free and pulled at Mum and then all three girls were encircled in arms, Mum and Dad holding them too tightly, whispering ‘sorry’ over and over again in their hair. Carly sagged against them as she realized they didn’t blame her, they blamed themselves. It felt like they melded together as one. Carly couldn’t tell where her family began and she ended.

And there, in the small room with the plain walls and the harsh fluorescent light, Carly felt like she was home.

‘Mr and Mrs Sinclair?’ The voice melted the glue that held them together and they fell apart. ‘Can I run through what’s going to happen now? I’m Chief Inspector Graham McDonald.’

Dad scooped up the twins again.

‘We will find the bastards, I promise you that,’ said Graham in a thick Scottish accent while Carly’s mother sobbed into a tissue.

It seemed to take forever before they were ushered out of the back entrance of the station to avoid the reporters, but still as they were driven past the front of the building cameras clicked firework-night flashes, rapid and bright. Questions were shouted. Outside of their house were news vans. Neighbours stood on steps in their dressing gowns, breath billowing in the frigid night air. It was chaotic and overwhelming and Carly couldn’t wait to be inside, but once back in her bedroom she found it unfamiliar and unsafe.

For weeks afterwards the twins would creep into Carly’s room after darkness fell, sneaking into the canopied bed she’d found embarrassing before she’d been taken but now she was thankful for the wispy white voiles she could draw around them. Shut out the world. The sisters would cuddle up together and Carly was thankful for the company. She couldn’t bear to be alone even if Leah had started wetting the bed and in the early hours, Marie’s arms and legs would thrash, as though she was running or fighting off an attacker. Carly herself would wake in the middle of the night, her sheets drenched with sweat, and for a nanosecond she’d wonder if it had been some awful, terrible nightmare. Then her tongue would prod the gap in her mouth where her tooth had been knocked out in the van on the way to Norcroft. Her parents had tried to persuade her to go to the dentist. Reassured her that he’d be able to fix it so you’d never know, but she hadn’t wanted to – wanting that physical reminder to never again become complacent.