I pressed record on the Philips Pocket Memo as they took their seats behind the plastic-topped tables at the front, shuffling papers, touching glasses of water, looking anywhere but up.

In the blue corner:

Detective Chief Superintendent George Oldman, a face from before, a big man amongst big men, thick black hair plastered back to look like less, a pale face streaked beneath the lights with a thousand burst blood vessels, the purple footprints of tiny spiders running across his bleached white cheeks to the slopes of his drunken nose.

Me thinking, his face, his people, his times.

And in the red corner:

The mother and the father in their crumpled clothes and greasy hair, him flicking at the dandruff on his collar, her fid dling with her wedding ring, both twitching at the bang and the wail of a microphone being switched on, looking for all the world more the sinners than the sinned against.

Me thinking, did you do your own daughter?

The policewoman put her hand upon the mother’s arm, the mother turned, staring at her until the policewoman looked away.

Round One:

Oldman tapped on the microphone and coughed:

“Thank you for coming gentlemen. It’s been a long night for everyone, especially Mr and Mrs Kemplay, and it’s going to be a long day. So we’ll keep this brief.”

Oldman took a sip from a glass of water.

“At about 4 PM yesterday evening, 12 December, Clare Kemplay disappeared on her way home from Morley Grange Junior and Infants, Morley. Clare left school with two classmates at a quarter to four. At the junction of Rooms Lane and Victoria Road, Clare said goodbye to her friends and was last seen walking down Victoria Road towards her home at approxi mately four o’clock. This was the last time anyone saw Clare.”