I’m brought back into the present by the sound of Linda blowing her nose, her puffy red eyes surveying the room, avoiding ours.

‘Do you mind if we look around Anna’s room?’

She shrugs her shoulders half-heartedly.

‘Of course. But the police have already been through her room, left it in a right state too. They look her laptop and some other things, they said they’d return them but they’ve not been brought back yet.’

We leave the room and ascend the stairs, my hand gliding up the recently painted banister, the faint smell of fumes wafting towards my nose. Maybe Rory is innocent and really did have business to attend to in the north and simply wanted to do something helpful, wanted to be close to someone who understood the pain he was feeling.

Anna’s room is the first on the left at the top of the stairs. The door opens, revealing a dark space - a pair of floor length black-out curtains are pulled tight across the window, preventing any light from entering. A musty smell leaks out, indicating that, aside from the police’s intrusion, the room has remained untouched since Anna was last here. I walk over to the curtains and pull them to the side, allowing a wash of light to invade the darkness.

It’s a large bedroom, painted a light purple, filled with many of Anna’s belongings, which is strange considering her life was being lived in London. Evidence of Anna’s final trip here is littered around; the straighteners resting on a ceramic plate on the floor beside a full length mirror, an open suitcase overflowing with clothes, as if they have been cast out in a hurry whilst searching for an appropriate outfit for what turned out to be her last night out.

Signs of Anna’s earlier life are here too. A bookcase filled with novels aimed at teenagers and shelves dedicated to medals and trophies, engraved in the early 2000’s, probably from her final years in primary school. Posters from films she has appeared in adorn the walls, some framed and some not. Her doting mother downstairs who has kept this shrine to her daughter was, is, obviously very proud of her.

My mind wanders to my dad, in a similar position to Linda, now that my mother is no longer with us. I think of him on his own in the expanse of his house and make a mental note to visit him as soon as I can.

It’s obvious that the police have been here and have given it the once over. It has the feel of a room that has been gone through with a clinical and unemotional feel, taken apart and reassembled again with dispassionate hands, oblivious to the life, the girl, who used to live her life within the four walls.

Liam and I spend some time poring over the room, pulling out desk drawers and poking through the contents, but there is nothing of note between the notepads and biros with little ink remaining.