‘What do you think? That I’ve abducted her and hidden her away somewhere, because Debbie won’t let me have the kids overnight, that she turns them against me? That I’ve …’ He wasn’t able to say the words.

‘These are just routine questions.’

‘Not to me! My little girl’s gone missing, my baby.’ He sagged. ‘Of course I’ll bloody tell you times. You can check them. But you’re wasting your time on me and all the while you’re not looking for her.’

‘We’re looking,’ said Langan. He thought: Seventeen and a half hours. Eighteen, now. She’s five years old and she’s been gone eighteen hours. He stared at the father. You could never tell.

Later, Richard Vine squatted on the floor beside the sofa where Rosie huddled, still in her pyjamas and her hair still in yesterday’s plaits.

‘Daddy?’ she said. It was almost the first thing she’d said since her mother had called the police yesterday afternoon. ‘Daddy?’

He opened his arms and gathered her in. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘She’ll come home soon. You’ll see.’

‘Promise?’ she whispered against his neck.

‘Promise.’

But she could feel his tears on the top of her head, where the parting was.

They asked her what she could remember, but she couldn’t remember anything. Just the cracks in the pavement, just choosing sweets, just Joanna calling her to wait. And her swell of anger against her little sister, her desire for her to be somewhere else. They said it was very important that she should tell them everyone she saw on that walk home from school. People she knew and people she didn’t know. It didn’t matter if she didn’t think it was important: that was for them to decide. But she hadn’t seen anyone, just Hayley in the sweetshop and that man with the pockmarked face. Shadows flitted through her mind. She was very cold, though it was summer outside the window. She put one end of her unravelling plait into her mouth and sucked it violently.