Chloe and Dan stood in the intensive care unit, outside the girl’s private room. They could see into the room, could see the shape beneath the blanket on the bed, but Amy Barker’s face was obscured by a mass of bandages and wires. Her mother was sitting in a chair beside her, both hands wrapped around one of her daughter’s. Janet Barker’s head was dipped forward, her face partially obscured by the straggly mess of her hair. She looked sleep-deprived; distraught. She didn’t notice the two officers for a while, her attention fixed on her child’s face and on the horrifying damage one tiny tablet and a momentary lapse in judgement had caused.

The doctor treating Amy was looking at his notes. He ushered Chloe and Dan away from the window and out of view of the girl’s mother. ‘She’s still in a critical condition,’ he told them. ‘At the moment, her chances of survival are fifty-fifty. The next twenty-four hours will be crucial.’

‘You’re pretty certain it was one of these party smarties she took?’ Dan asked.

‘We are now, yes. Amy has shown classic symptoms of an extreme reaction to the Ecstasy in the tablet. The initial fever reported by the people around her at the club was followed by hypothermia, which caused the kidney failure we’re now treating. What isn’t so clear is the effect on Amy’s brain. That’s where the next twenty-four hours come in.’

Chloe’s attention remained with the scene she had just witnessed, her concentration momentarily stolen by the thought of Janet Barker and her unconscious daughter. She couldn’t begin to imagine what must have been going through the woman’s mind.

‘Why the hell do these kids want to take this shit?’ Dan muttered, as the doctor left them.

‘It’s sold on the basis of its caffeine content, apparently. They think they’re going to get a six-hour high from it. The dealers don’t promote the Ecstasy side effects, obviously. Far less appealing.’

They stopped talking as Amy’s mother appeared at the doorway, eyeing the two of them with uncertainty. She had been expecting them; she had already spoken with officers the night before, when her daughter had been rushed to hospital from the club in which she had taken the drug, but she had been in such an emotional state that they hadn’t been able to gather much information from her.

Chloe introduced herself and Dan before leading Janet Barker to the relatives’ room along the corridor. It was sparse and brightly lit, headache-inducing.

‘The doctor has informed us of Amy’s current condition,’ she said as Janet took a seat beside her, ‘so we appreciate what a difficult time this is. We do need a bit more information about last night, though, to help us build a picture of what happened to Amy before she took the drug. I’m sorry to have to ask this, but have you known your daughter to ever do something like this before?’

She had expected indignation from the woman – anger, maybe – but instead the question was met with a reluctant and tired shrug of the shoulders. ‘Maybe … I don’t know. I’d like to be able to say no, but how well does anyone know what their teenager is up to? She’s sixteen – I can’t follow her round all her life.’ Janet’s tone had become increasingly defensive, as though she thought the police held her responsible for what had happened to her daughter. Chloe wondered if, at some subconscious level, she might have automatically formed an opinion of this woman based on her daughter’s actions.

‘We’re not here to pass judgement, Mrs Barker.’

‘Ms,’ Janet quickly corrected her.

‘Ms … sorry. Our concern is with finding whoever supplied your daughter with the drugs and making sure that person can’t cause anyone else harm. You might be aware of the media coverage this particular drug has received in recent months?’

Janet nodded. She twisted her hands in her lap. ‘I’ve seen it on the news. Amy’s not the first, is she? Probably won’t be the last, either. They never bloody learn.’ She sighed and sat back in her chair, leaning her head back and gazing up at the ceiling. She exhaled slowly, as if releasing all the tension accumulated over the past twelve hours. ‘They’re everywhere,’ she said, almost talking to herself. ‘Ask any of the kids – if they want them, they’re easy enough to come by.’

‘Amy’s mentioned this to you before?’

‘I’ve heard her and her friends talking. I always thought she’d have a bit more sense.’

‘Which friends were with her last night, Ms Barker? It was an under-eighteens night, wasn’t it?’

Janet Barker nodded. It had already occurred to Chloe that given the circumstances, the person who had supplied Amy Barker with the drugs that had landed her in the ICU was likely to have been either a fellow teenager or a member of staff at the nightclub. Was there someone working at the club who was selling drugs to sixteen-year-olds? What sort of person did that?

They had already requested CCTV footage from the club’s manager. Dan had offered to trawl through it when they got back to the station.

‘She went with her friend Jade,’ Janet told them. ‘She’s here somewhere.’

‘At the hospital?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you have her number?’ Dan asked. ‘If you could get her up here, we could do with having a chat with her.’

‘Probably best not to mention us over the phone, though,’ Chloe added. ‘Might scare her off.’

Janet nodded and reached for her mobile phone from her pocket. A moment later, she was talking to her daughter’s friend, asking her if she could return to the unit. Chloe wondered whether Jade too had taken something the night before. Had both girls tried what they’d been sold or given, and Amy been the unlucky one?

‘How has Jade been towards you?’ Chloe asked once the call was ended. ‘Must be difficult for her to be here. She might be blaming herself.’

Janet gave an audible tut. ‘Doubt it. They’re all the same these days, aren’t they? Me, me, me. I don’t think Jade would know guilt if it strolled up and slapped her in the face.’ She looked away for a moment in an apparent attempt to conceal the bitterness she felt towards her daughter’s friend. ‘She’s here, though, I suppose,’ she said, seeming to momentarily regret the anger of her words. ‘That’s something, at least.’

They spoke a while longer, as Janet filled the room with stories of her daughter’s behaviour at school – not a bad girl, as she put it, but not an angel either. She liked to see how far she could push the boundaries any adult set around her; she had been the same as a young child. She stopped talking after a while, as though worried she had said too much and might have inadvertently incriminated Amy by telling them how she had tested her teachers’ patience.

The door sounded and Jade entered the room. A small girl for her age, she had an array of piercings in her ears and looked as though she was still wearing the make-up she’d applied to go out the evening before. She had obviously been home at some point to get changed, and was now wearing a pair of leggings and an oversized T-shirt that swallowed her tiny frame.

‘They said you were in—’

She stopped mid-sentence as she registered Chloe and Dan sitting with Janet. Chloe had barely had time to stand before the girl shot from the room, yanking the door shut behind her.

‘Damn,’ she muttered.

She ran after her, following her as she pushed through the double doors that led out of the ICU. She called out the girl’s name in the corridor, but Jade only quickened her pace, the trainers she was wearing obviously coming in handy. It was almost as though she’d worn them with this exact purpose in mind, Chloe thought, as she panted behind her.

Chloe hated to run, and the girl was much faster. She seemed to fly down the stairwell, and within seconds she was gone. Chloe stood looking down at the empty flight of steps. It seemed everyone they wanted to speak to preferred not to speak to them.