‘Don’t worry about your dog,’ he’d said. ‘One of my colleagues has taken her to your son-in-law’s house.’ He’d looked genuinely worried about me.

Had he been in my house, that policeman? I couldn’t remember. Thinking made me so tired. I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

When I woke, a nurse was by my side, telling me I was doing well, but I wondered why I was alone. Why hadn’t my family come to be with me? Where were they?

A tear slid down my cheek and the nurse wiped it away.

‘It’s okay to be scared, Elizabeth. You’ve been through an ordeal. But you’re in the best place now and you’re getting the gold standard care. I’m told you’re a legend around these parts.’

I tried to smile – was aware my mouth wouldn’t do what it was supposed to. I kept losing my train of thought. It was as if everything I needed to know was hidden behind a filter that blurred all the edges.

There was something about a photograph there.

An orange T-shirt. Too bright.

And a warning.

Wednesday, 13 June

Chapter Forty

Rachel

Getting out to see Michael wasn’t easy. The girls were clingy. Paul had decided to stay with us and not go to Belfast. He’d been attentive, warm even, at breakfast. I’d barely slept all night. I knew I needed to make a tough decision. In my head it was probably already made, but I needed to see him all the same.

I needed to tell him just how complicated everything was. How it was becoming more and more complicated with every day. It had been different before, when I thought Paul didn’t love me and no longer had a vested interest in our marriage. Before Clare died. Before I felt my family was threatened from all angles.

Michael’s plea to run away with him had been running through my head. Each and every time I thought of leaving the girls, my heart twisted. And in the darkness of that hotel room, my family all so close that I could hear their breathing, the reality of leaving them – hurting them – seemed so alien to me.

Regardless of what had been happening, it had started to dawn on me that I’d been risking it all over the last months without making the effort to fix the broken pieces first. I was to blame as much as Paul was. We’d both let each other down so badly.

I woke to Molly still in the bed beside me, her small, pudgy hand caressing my face as if I were the most precious possession in the world.

‘I love you, Mammy,’ she said as my eyes flickered open.

Her love was pure. Without motive. Unconditional. In the early hours in a darkened hotel room, it took my breath away.