‘You can’t go home, so stop asking. Your parents don’t love you anymore.’ The woman stands by her bed. ‘They wanted me to take you away.’

‘That’s a lie!’

‘Don’t you remember when you made your mother really angry?’

The girl screws up her eyes, trying not to think of all the times she’d made her mummy start shouting. But there had been so many and how do you not think of something when it’s right in front of you? She’d taken a biscuit when Mummy had said not to. She’d refused to eat her green beans. She’d dropped Daddy’s remote control in the toilet when she was playing explorers. It had a light on the end and she’d needed a torch.

‘M-maybe?’ Her voice is hoarse with crying, faint with disuse.

‘Well, there you go. You made her stop loving you. When a mummy and daddy stop loving their child, I take them away. I’m just doing my job.’ She spreads her hands, looks sad. ‘I wouldn’t have had to do it if you hadn’t been bad. Mummies only want perfect children. It’s your own fault that yours doesn’t love you anymore. All your own fault. Say it.’

The little girl chokes on a sob. ‘I–It’s my fault.’ She looks up at the woman. ‘If I promise to be good, can I go home?’

The woman shakes her head. ‘It’s far too late for that. But … I might be able to help you go somewhere even better.’