Jillian Lin had been up since five and there was a tray of pastries from a supermarket and a pot of coffee and a bowl of cut fruit, because she is a woman who cannot have people in her house without putting something out, and because she did not know what else to do with herself.

There were two officers inside, not eight.

Daniels and Cooper stayed on the porch.

There was a detective from the property crimes detail at the kitchen table in a polo shirt with a laminate on a lanyard, whose name was Vicente Abascal and who had been pulled in on his own time as a favour, and who was the only person in that house who actually knew what he was doing.

And Maya was there, in the new chair, in pyjamas, at thirteen, at seven o’clock in the morning, with four adults and two police officers in her kitchen and a boy from her class standing in the doorway, and she was not beaming.