One damp evening in August, two little girls went missing. For two weeks, the entire country was transfixed by their disappearance, and a shrine grew in the village where they lived. Then their naked bodies were found in a nettle filled ditch and the caretaker of the local school was charged with their muder, his girlfriend with conspiracy. Sixteen months later, after a trial filled with unbearable detail, Ian Huntley was found guilty of murder; Maxine Carr of perverting the course of justice. The case was a detective story and a sinister fairy tale rolled into one, a narrative of loss, horror and collective mourning, a myth which seemed to tell us something about the way we live now, and the fears that we all hold.