Sinead took a drag on her cigarette. “As well as can be expected. If you mean am I high, I don’t know if Lenny told you, but I’m on the methadone. Everything feels a bit far away and muffled, but I’m here, and I’m hurting. I can’t believe my little girl is gone.”

“Lenny said he thought you might be with your addict friends when we called earlier.”

Sinead managed a weak smile. “He would. But I wasn’t. I really am going to make it work this time. I went to the clinic, then spent some time with my counselor, and after that, just to cheer myself up, I went shopping and treated myself to Pizza Express with my friend Carolyn.” She pointed to a few packages in the corner. “Haven’t even got around to opening them yet. What happened to my Mimosa?”

Annie swallowed. The last thing she wanted to do was tell Sinead Moffat what had been done to her daughter. Even the scant details on the news, which Sinead clearly hadn’t seen, were bad enough. “We think she was murdered,” she said.

“But how? Why?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Annie pressed on quickly ahead, skirting the question of how Mimsy had been killed. Lenny Thornton could tell her that Mimsy had been “beaten,” if he remembered. “We’re going to need you to come to Eastvale to identify your daughter. But it’s late now. We can send a car for you tomorrow morning, if that’s OK?”

“I can see her then?”

Annie knew that the staff there would have cleaned Mimosa’s body up as best they could for identification, but it would still be a great shock. “Yes. Tomorrow. Is it OK if I ask you a couple of questions now?”

“OK.”

Annie looked over to Gerry, who had taken out her notebook.

“When did you last see your daughter?”

“I think it was after the weekend, you know, the one before this. She came by for a while on Monday, changed her clothes, had something to eat. Same as usual.”

That was the day before she had been killed, Annie realized. “Did you talk about anything in particular?”

“No.”

“Do you know where she’d been, where she stayed when she wasn’t here?”

“No. There was a mate called Jade. They hung out a lot together.”

“Boyfriend?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“But no one she talked about?”

“No.”

“How long had things been like this?”

“About six months.”

“And you weren’t worried?”

“Of course I was. I’d been there myself. Teenage girls are secretive. You must remember that yourselves? But I knew there was no point goading her or nagging her. If there was something bothering her, she’d tell me when she was good and ready.”

“Did she seem worried or upset by anything?”

“No, she was as cheeky as ever.”