And Julie – had anyone gone to her house like they had to mine? I suddenly felt sick. She was on her own, with Brendan and the children away to his mother’s. Wouldn’t she be more vulnerable than I was?

Then again, the picture left at my house clearly said I was next. It still made little sense. I wished I had the photo to look at again. To see if it sparked more memories. I hadn’t really absorbed it properly when the police had showed me – not the subtleties of it, anyway. I didn’t remember it being taken.

Did I remember Laura trying to hang out with us? Maybe. Maybe she sat on the outside of our group. A memory flickered. A time when she was there, always there. We were trying to discuss something really serious – Julie’s crush on Ronan, if memory serves me right – and there was Laura. Listening in. Always listening in. It was none of her business.

Had I told her as much? Something niggled at me. Oh, God! I cringed with shame. I’d told her to get her own life. I remembered it now. Remembered the look on her face as she’d slinked away, face scarlet. Clare muttering, too loudly, that Laura was ‘so rude’.

‘Who does she think she is?’ she’d asked.

We really could be bitches, in hindsight. But these were small incidents. It wasn’t like we bullied her. We didn’t hurt her. We just protected our own group. It had been none of her business, after all. It was a private discussion, about private things.

But now it was keeping me awake, wondering if she felt it more. Wondering if there was something I wasn’t remembering about the whole sorry episode.

I crept out of bed, lifted my phone and went into the bathroom. Sitting on the floor, I sent a few text messages. One to Ronan to ask how he was, one to Julie to make sure she was safe, and one to Michael to let him know what had happened and to tell him that we were currently holed up in a hotel. I told him it was unlikely I’d be able to see him soon and even sending messages would be riskier than normal. I knew I should’ve had the guts to tell him it was over. That I needed to be there for my family now. God knows, I wanted to be there for my family, but I wasn’t ready to let him go. Not just yet. Not over a text message.

Julie replied to say she’d gone to Brendan’s mother’s house, too. Once he’d heard what had happened at my house, he’d driven back to insist she go with him. She apologised for the state she’d been in earlier. Said she hoped I was okay.

I was far from okay.