‘She’s sleeping. She looks awful; she got beaten up quite badly. She can’t remember much about it.’ Violet bit her lip. ‘I think Rita gave her something to help her sleep.’

‘What about Tommy?’

‘He’s sleeping too, he’s been up half the night,’ Violet explained, but even as she spoke the door opened and Tommy came in, looking white-faced but determined.

‘Tommy!’ Nancy stood up and went over to him. ‘What happened?’

‘Are you all right?’ Violet broke in. ‘You’re meant to be in bed.’

Tommy shook his head. ‘I can’t sleep. I keep thinking and thinking. What if it’s my fault? I forgot to bolt the back door.’

‘Don’t be daft, you aren’t to blame,’ Violet said hurriedly. The boy had enough to worry about, without that extra burden of guilt. ‘You locked it, the policeman checked and saw it had been broken.’

‘So tell me what happened,’ Nancy insisted.

Tommy drew a deep breath and tried as best he could to explain. He’d been asleep with Georgie in his room and had woken up when he heard a noise – he wasn’t sure what it was. He’d had a nightmare, but now he reckoned that was the back door being forced open and all the activity beyond his bedroom door. Then there was another noise, which he now realised was Sarah stumbling on the stairs. He’d got up and found Georgie’s little camp bed was empty – then gone out and seen Sarah on the stairs, blood on her nightdress. They’d checked the house together and found no Georgie but a broken lock on the back door.

‘Sarah didn’t see who broke in, but she sort of recognised the voice,’ Tommy added. ‘Whoever it was thought she was Kitty; he kept calling her Kitty.’

‘But who would want to hurt Kitty?’ Nancy wondered aloud. Kitty was one of those people who simply didn’t have enemies. If it had been Danny, that would have been another matter – then again, nobody who knew Danny would be likely to risk breaking into his house like that. ‘Can we wake Sarah up and ask her to try to remember some more?’

‘I think we’ll have to wait,’ Violet cautioned her. ‘She was in a pretty bad way and, like I said, Rita gave her a sedative or something.’

Tommy balled his fists in frustration. ‘We’ve got to do something.’

‘I can’t sit here till she wakes up,’ Nancy burst out. ‘Every second counts. He could be freezing to death somewhere. He’ll be frightened. We have to find him. Think, who could have done this?’ She paced across the room, holding her arms tight across her stomach as if to keep in the pain. She still hadn’t taken off her coat.