One of the hardest truths we've learned from the disappearance of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman is that short of locking our children in the attic, we are helpless in the face of random evil, writes Kathy Sheridan
Looking back, the achievement - or the misfortune - of the Cambridgeshire police was to keep hope alive for so long. They squared up to the statistics, which show that children abducted in this way are usually dead within 48 hours, and determined that this time, their little force would confound them.
They transmitted it to the families. It was written in the strong, intelligent face of Kevin Wells, father of Holly, as he sat alert and composed at press conferences, holding his wife's hand, handling multi-part questions in the orderly, meticulous way of a man in possession of every scintilla of information and still in control, still capable of rational thought.
If he had reason to hope, then why wouldn't we? The images of two shiny-faced, bright-eyed little girls, captured on camera 90 minutes before their disappearance, barely suppressing the giggles and the glee in their matching Manchester United kits, would come to haunt us as their parents endured a stomach-turning, two-week crucifixion.
With it, came a willing suspension of belief. Who could bring themselves to snuff out the lives of two innocents? Who would want to? And against that, came the constant struggle to bury that insistent part of the mind, the part that threatens to engulf us with images of such horror and depravity that it can only drive decent people to thoughts of murderous vengeance and despair.
Courtesy of the 24-hour television news channels, we accompanied the Wells and the Chapman families on a small part of their journey to Golgotha.
With their voracious hunger for news and instant reporting, for better or worse, these channels brought to us every rumour, every stray word, every talkative villager, every "breakthrough", most of it unfiltered or unleavened by time or reflection. It seemed that this calamity had befallen good neighbours just a few miles down the road in a place alive with gossip and speculation.
So when they returned to interview the woman who had reported an unlikely sighting of the girls on the motorway the morning after their disappearance, we saw her certainty fade before our eyes.
When they told us that Huntley and Carr had been called in for questioning on Friday afternoon, we were able, just like the people of Soham, to dissect the nondescript pair who had been talking for the cameras only a day before.
And when soon after we heard that Holly's mother, Nicola, had come out shopping in the village, looking cheerful, we put the gloss on it that we wanted: she had clearly been told something that had come out of the questioning and it must be good.
From these small omens, for a few hours on Friday, it was possible to believe that the two little girls were coming home, a bit tearful maybe but miraculously unscathed, leaving the name of Soham to stand forever as a beacon of hope, defiance and redemption.
Instead, it will rank in the same chilling roll-call as a Dunblane or a Hungerford, a name resonant of horrors that surpass human understanding. After Soham, school caretakers and classroom assistants will never be above suspicion and like Dunblane, children will feel threatened in a place which should be a monument to security.
After Soham, can the red shirt of Manchester United ever evoke anything other than two lovely, smiling faces? Represent anything other than an image of innocence crucified? Soham this weekend was a place where the mutual need of locals and media suddenly became redundant and its forbearance showed signs of snapping. A place where the grieving process must take its course and anger and recrimination will have its turn.
Cambridgeshire police will be among the prime targets. Time will tell whether different tactics might have yielded other results or at least a swifter conclusion.
But the announcement finally that they were dealing with a murder case was surely devastating for those who led by flying the flag of hope. Though clearly vital for police morale, was it sensible to sustain it at such a pitch? Only the parents of Holly and Jessica can tell us that.
But we do know, or can guess at, some other truths. That for all the talk of a different policing system, of Internet supervision, of sex offender registers, of more vigilant parenting, it is probable that none could have helped Holly and Jessica. As events unfold, we will probably find that their terrible fate had nothing to do with the Internet, nothing to do with the hundreds of known sex offenders who live within reach of Soham, nothing that the best-organised police force on earth or most brilliant psychiatrist could have predicted. Paedophiles may invest vast amounts of time in "grooming" their prey. Or may pounce in seconds.
The fact is that having taken all the preventative steps open to us, short of locking our children in the attic, we are helpless in the face of random evil. That is the hardest truth of all.
But as we stare into the darkest heart of humanity in these coming days, we should also remind ourselves of another truth: that of all the terrible violations perpetrated against children every day, by far the least likely are abuse or abduction by a stranger. Like the people of Soham, we must learn first, to look to our own.