‘Whatever Bernie Doherty may or may not have said to you in that room, I’d remind you this is a sensitive ongoing police investigation and we would ask that details of the incident are not reported in the media,’ DS King says.

‘Have any arrests been made?’ I ask.

‘Not at this time. I’d suggest you direct any further questions through official channels. I’m not a spokesperson for the police.’

I nod. She’s told me all she needed to. There is nothing, legally, to stop me from printing details of what the Doherty family told me. Restrictions only come into play once an arrest has been made so as not to jeopardise legal proceedings. But for perhaps the first time in my career, I feel my nerve leave me. This is more serious than I ever thought it could be.

It was supposed to be a news story. An investigation into something from the past. It was never supposed to bring violence to anyone’s door. Were the same people behind Liam’s attack as were behind the attacks on my car, on my home? I imagine Liam Doherty, the frail man he has become, being held down while boiling water was poured over his skin. I imagine his skin blistering, melting off in sheets, and I feel sick.

‘You’ve gone very pale,’ DS King says just as I reach for one of the cardboard kidney bowls in the cubicle and empty my stomach contents into it.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Ingrid

By the time I get home, I’m exhausted. My stomach and my throat hurt from the force of being sick. I feel sweaty and unkempt from the heat in the hospital. The plaster that has been put across my arm after a blood sample was taken has started to itch at my skin. I pull it off, revealing a dark bruise underneath.

I walk straight to the bathroom and strip off before standing under the shower and letting the almost too hot water pummel at my tired muscles. A police car had brought me home. DS King had tried, again, to persuade me to go elsewhere, but all I felt in that moment was the need to be in my own space.

But now, as the steaming hot water stings at my skin, I realise there’s no comfort here any more. No sense of being safe. Not on my own. I think of the warnings I’ve received, what has happened to Liam, how scared Jamesy sounded on the phone, and I’m scared. So scared.