‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But could you call into the station at some stage in the next twenty-four hours if at all possible? We’d like to take a full statement and get a copy of these messages, Mrs Walker.’

‘Of course,’ I said, taking his business card from him. ‘I’m sorry to have to rush off.’

I was lifting my coat from the arm of the sofa, when Julie spoke.

‘How did she die?’ she asked, her voice small. ‘What happened?’

Constable King shifted a little uncomfortably in her seat. ‘At the moment we can’t say too much while we await a postmortem examination, but it looks as if the cause of death was severe blood loss brought about by knife wounds.’

I felt my stomach tighten again. My legs weaken. I thought of Molly standing at the door of the crèche, some brightly coloured painting in her hand ready to be shoved in my direction with a smile. I thought of how we usually sang nursery rhymes all the way home in the car. How my evenings, which I’d considered so completely dull and ordinary, could never be so again.

I desperately needed to speak to Paul, but more than that, I ached to speak to Michael. Michael who could distract me from any pain, who could help me block the horrific reality of what had happened. Michael who was my guilty pleasure, and my darkest secret.

Chapter Five

Rachel

‘Mammy, why are you sad?’ Molly blinked at me, her bottom lip trembling as I undid her seat belt and lifted her from her car seat.

I’d been trying to act normal for her; clearly, I wasn’t doing a very good job.

But just how do you tell a three-year-old something so catastrophic has happened? She trusted me implicitly to protect her from all the bad in the world. This would prove to her that I wasn’t infallible. That bad things happened. Horrible things. And while it’s a lesson we all have to learn, I didn’t want to be the one to take the innocence from my baby girl.

‘I’m just a bit sleepy,’ I lied, kissing the top of her head. ‘You know how you get really grouchy when you need a nap? It’s a bit like that.’

She looked at me for a moment, her blue eyes staring out from under the mop of tight blonde curls surrounding her face. I swear she could see right through me – knew I was lying – but just chose not to challenge me. Not this time.

‘Okay, Mammy,’ she said. ‘Let’s go see Daddy and Beth.’ She took my hand in hers and pulled me towards the front door.

‘Daddy’s working in Belfast still,’ I told her, ‘but Beth should be home and I bet she’s ready for cuddles from her best girl in the world.’