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You’ll find that once you’re here a while.’
    â€˜Do you think she was targeted because of who she was?’ Mickey asked.
    â€˜The father asked the same thing,’ Lucy said. ‘It seems unlikely. She wasn’t using his name. He did suggest the family of the bank man he shot in the robbery might have cause for revenge, but I’m not convinced.’
    â€˜We’ll follow up on it,’ Burns commented. ‘Was anything useful found on the phone?’
    â€˜Actually, I spoke with someone in ICS just before coming up here. She was befriended on Facebook by someone called Paul Bradley. He made first contact in September. About eight weeks ago they met and she seems to have managed to get an iPhone that she’s since kept hidden from the residential unit. ICS are trying to track Bradley through his internet address.’
    â€˜Brilliant,’ Burns said. ‘I’ll need the details of the officer in ICS. Is Bradley known to PPU?’
    â€˜Well, I ran him through the system based on the personal information on his Facebook page, but no luck,’ Lucy said. ‘It could be a cover name.’
    â€˜He could be a known offender then,’ Burns said. ‘We’d best speak to the usual suspects first.’
    Burns flicked through his notes, words forming silently on his lips as he read through what he’d written. ‘Was she using drugs?’
    Lucy shook her head. ‘Maybe a little – it wasn’t something we ever investigated. It didn’t seem relevant.’
    Burns nodded. ‘Everything can be relevant,’ he said. ‘Toxicology will show if she was using prior to her death. How long had she been self-harming?’
    â€˜It was first noticed when she was nine. She went into care about then after her mother was locked up to dry out for the first time. Karen had been looking after her for four years by that stage. The social workers asked Karen about when she’d started cutting herself, but she wouldn’t tell them. Still, she continued with it until ... well until she died, I suppose.’
    Burns nodded. ‘Was she ever considered a suicide risk?’
    â€˜Not to my mind,’ Lucy said. ‘Or Social Services.’
    â€˜Despite the cutting?’ Mickey asked incredulously.
    â€˜Self-harming, especially the type of cutting that Karen did on herself, is a way of coping with life, a way of surviving. She did it to make life tolerable, not to end it.’
    â€˜Why?’
    Lucy shrugged. ‘How else could she deal with adolescence and babysitting her alcoholic forty-year-old mother?’
    â€˜Was there any history of alcohol abuse in the girl?’
    â€˜The usual,’ Lucy said.
    â€˜How did you come to know her so well?’ Burns asked.
    â€˜I didn’t know her that well. I just met Karen at the residential unit a few times when I had to call up there about some of the other kids. We got on OK.’
    â€˜Why?’
    Lucy considered the question. ‘I just got her.’
    Burns considered the response. ‘OK then, so who was she? Describe Karen Hughes to us. Help us better understand her.’
    Lucy shrugged. ‘She was nice. She was caring, looking after her mother. She was patient, putting up with all the crap that she dealt with. She had a weird sense of humour. But she was troubled. She had ... she had very low self-esteem.’
    â€˜There’s a reason the ACC wanted you in PPU, obviously,’ Burns commented.
    Lucy silently reflected that there was more than one reason her mother had pushed her into the PPU, but she did not speak.
    â€˜These hairs Forensics pulled from Karen’s clothes. I don’t suppose Social Services have a dog in the residential unit?’ Burns said.
    â€˜No, sir.’
    â€˜What about known sex offenders? Have you followed up on those?’
    â€˜Inspector Fleming and I had already begun interviewing known sex offenders in the area as