I’m hit with a sense of melancholy for that schoolgirl. So innocent. What changed? What went wrong for her?

Although I know some of it. We both changed after what happened in 1994.

‘Blimey!’ exclaims Rory, when I’ve finished filling him in on today’s events. ‘Are you allowed to report any of this, considering she’s in a coma?’

I drop teabags into two mugs and nod. ‘The case is only active if she’s charged. And she can’t be charged because she’s unconscious.’

Rory runs a hand through his hair. ‘What was she like at school? Did she have violent tendencies? Was she the kind of kid to pull the legs off a daddy-long-legs?’

‘Of course not!’ I cry, a little too quickly. Heather would never hurt an animal, or insect. ‘She was just a normal schoolgirl.’

Except she wasn’t.

We were almost twelve when we first met. Mum and Dad had only recently divorced so we’d moved from a four-bedroom detached house in Bristol to the little cottage in Tilby in time for me to start the one and only senior school there at the beginning of the Easter term. At first I didn’t have much to do with Heather. A girl called Gina, big and butch with spiky hair and too many piercings, took me under her wing. She was popular and I was easily accepted into her group. I always did have the gift of the gab, as my mum would say, and I found it easy to make friends. Heather, on the other hand, was a bit of a loner. Apparently, according to Gina, she’d only recently moved to the area from Kent and was finding it hard to fit in.

I first noticed her in our art lesson. We were put together by our art teacher, Miss Simpson. Heather didn’t really speak to me much, just sat beside me drawing the bowl of apples we had been asked to sketch, her long dark hair falling over her shoulder and pooling onto the desk, deep in concentration. I was mesmerized by the way her hand sped across the page, shading in the apples with expert precision and flair. I could tell, even then, that she had a talent. I enjoyed art but she was so much better than me.

‘Wow, that’s amazing!’ I’d exclaimed, when she’d finished. Mine looked like two blobs on a plate while hers were so lifelike.