‘But I don’t think I saw her at all after we left school. I don’t think I’d have recognised her anyway if I did. There were two hundred girls in our year group. I don’t mean to sound dismissive, but she meant nothing to me. We weren’t friends. We weren’t really anything. I barely remember her.’

My head hurt as I tried to bring an image of her into focus. It was so long ago. A different lifetime and certainly a different me.

DI Bradley nodded. I wasn’t sure he believed me and that left me feeling uneasy.

‘What were Clare’s last words?’ I asked him. ‘Seeing as they’re out in the public domain anyway, you might as well tell me.’

‘“Warn them”,’ he replied and I felt my desire to run away grow stronger.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Elizabeth

The paper sat in front of me. My words, stark, in black and white. A picture of my beautiful daughter. Ingrid Devlin had at least been true to her word. She hadn’t gone into any salacious detail about Laura’s death – just that she’d died unexpectedly at a tragically young age.

I knew it was journalist code for ‘killed herself’ – everyone reading would know that – but at least it wasn’t spelled out. My fears that there’d be lurid details of how she’d done it were assuaged, for now at least.

Had I made DI Bradley angry with me? I didn’t know, and part of me felt guilty for talking to the press, but what choice had I been given? I’d done this to protect my grandchildren. To protect my son-in-law. To protect me, if I was honest. Not that I felt ashamed of how she died. Ashamed maybe that I hadn’t seen how bad she was feeling. That I hadn’t seen how much she needed me.

No, that wasn’t shame. That was guilt. People would judge me for letting her slip through the net. They’d blame me. It had already happened before.

I wasn’t surprised when the police knocked at my door later. Nor was I surprised that my phone wouldn’t stop ringing, and that journalist after journalist walked up through the farmyard and knocked on my door.

‘I have nothing more to say on the matter,’ I told them all. Each eager reporter with their phone set to record. ‘Any statement from now on will be issued through Ingrid Devlin at The Chronicle and you can contact her if you have any further queries.’

They looked disappointed. As did the police. Constable King arrived and sat opposite me at my kitchen table, barely touching the coffee I’d made for her.

‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered. ‘She didn’t give me much choice and I was just so frustrated by it all. If anyone else had been hurt, I’d never have forgiven myself.’