Something is not right in there, and nobody will listen to an old woman.” She had been hearing things, she told me, for weeks.

I have thought about Mrs.

Harris a great deal since, because she is the quiet hero of this whole story and no one will ever put her in a headline.

For weeks she had known something was wrong next door.

She had heard the arguments and watched the privacy panels go up and noticed the little girl vanish from the yard, and she had done what a decent person does — she had tried to tell someone.

She had called a non-emergency line once, she admitted to me later, and been told that arguments between spouses weren’t police business unless there was evidence of a crime.