I felt tears prick at my eyes. That sense of foreboding from earlier rose into something I could barely contain.

‘Is that Laura?’ DI Bradley asked.

‘It is,’ I stuttered, reaching out to touch the screen as if there were a trace of her in her image.

He paused for a moment then showed me another picture.

‘If you look here, this was written on the back of it. The names of the girls in the picture. “Julie, Rachel, Clare and me. 1990.”’

I stared at my daughter’s childish handwriting, the memory tearing at my heart.

‘It very much looks as though this photo belonged to Laura,’ he said softly. ‘Does that look like her handwriting?’

I could only nod. My girl’s handwriting. I didn’t realise just how much I missed something as silly as handwriting until I saw it in front of me. My hand flew to my mouth as if to try to contain the grief that wanted to spill out.

‘I think from this point in the investigation we reasonably have to assume that whoever carried out the attack on Clare Taylor, and whoever’s been leaving messages for you, and for those of the friends and family of Clare Taylor, is connected to your daughter and has been able to access her personal belongings. The big question, of course, is who?’

I couldn’t speak. I just kept looking at the picture of my daughter. So alive. So full of hope. I thought of the missing space in the photo album.

DI Bradley continued. ‘Elizabeth, I know this is horrible and it’s bringing up all sorts of memories from a very difficult time. But given what’s happened, we’ll be looking into Laura’s file. We have to question whether the same person who targeted Clare, who’s now targeting her friends, could also have targeted Laura two years ago.

‘Perhaps she felt threatened by that person. We believe the man responsible to be a very manipulative and narcissistic creature. He’s clearly capable of carrying out acts of extreme violence. Did she ever mention feeling threatened by anyone? Scared of anyone? Any information at all that you can give us about the people in her life could break this case.’

The room about me began to sway. The edges became fuzzy. I wasn’t sure if I was whispering, talking or shouting.

‘But Laura took her own life. She left a note. Nothing about her death, nothing, bears any resemblance to what happened to Clare.’

‘And it could be that investigation will find just that,’ he said. ‘But we can’t ignore what’s happened and we want to make you fully aware of what’s going on.’

I felt the whiskey that hadn’t properly settled in my stomach rise. Swallowing it back, I looked at DI Bradley, tried to focus on him and his voice. Tried to think about what he was telling me. What it could mean.