“It may as well be,” the editor replied. “Imagine if we tried to report that a senior member of the House of Lords was engaged in lewd behaviour at a Catholic orphanage. The last high-profile person to be accused of child abuse only came to light long after he was dead – conveniently. Do you think this was because he was so clever at hiding what he’d been doing that none of his victims ever reported him to the authorities?” He gesticulated, thrusting the notebook in Frankie’s face to emphasise each point. “He was a famous figure, renowned for his charity work. If the hospitals let on that they knew he was sexually interfering with patients, male, female, young, old… God, he didn’t even care if they had a pulse! They’d lose millions of pounds of donations and then have potential damages to pay. Was he protected? Work it out for yourself.” He mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “If a whisper of these allegations reaches the real power in this land then you’ll find your investigation is closed down before you’ve even begun. That’s why we can’t mention these names until you have a firm case against them.”

Frankie shook her head. “This can’t be right. Did your reporter have any evidence to support this allegation? We can’t proceed on the basis of an old notebook that we can’t even be sure did belong to June Stevens, much less put people like that in the frame.”

“This is how we should proceed.” The editor spoke quietly. “First we need to make copies of this notebook and place them where they can be easily accessed if we are threatened.”

Frankie thought this was getting into the realms of paranoia. “Oh, come on, who’s going to be threatening us?”

Josephine joined the conversation. “We would not be the first journalists to suffer an unexpected death because we were about to reveal an inconvenient truth. If killing us will not prevent the distribution of June’s notebook, then that makes our lives a little bit safer.”

The editor nodded in agreement. “Secondly, the police have to proceed very carefully. If there is any hint that you know the full extent of the people involved in the abuse then you’ll be closed down – same as they did with your predecessor, DI Rankin.”

“You think he was leaned on?”

“Leaned on, threatened, told in no uncertain terms from on high to close any investigation down. Yes, Frankie, and that is why you will meet resistance from your superiors if they know you’re digging. You have to find the evidence, incontrovertible evidence, before your investigation gets closed down and you end up silenced somehow.” He took another puff of his inhaler. “And I want justice for June. I want to print what those bastards did to the children and put whoever we can behind bars.”