He left me there, on the ground, for two hours. Two hours before he loaded me into his car and, overcome with remorse, sobbed all the way to the hospital. I think he wanted me to tell him it was okay, that I forgave him, but I couldn’t. In that moment, and may God forgive me for saying it, but in that moment, I hated him. I wanted him gone.

I was tired of combining grief with fear. I wouldn’t let him make me think I’d driven Laura to her death. By the time I was discharged from hospital, he was long gone. Seems word of what he’d done to me had got around and he’d had a visit from a group of ‘community activists’, who gave him just twenty-four hours to get out of Derry.

‘Elizabeth?’ Cliona said gently. ‘Just in case?’

I nodded, slowly. I couldn’t run from the monster I’d created any more.

Cliona filled Constable King in when she arrived a short time later.

‘Elizabeth, have you suspected your son might be involved before now? Have you kept this from us?’

Her tone was soft but there was no doubt that she wasn’t impressed.

I started to panic. ‘I didn’t mean to,’ I said. ‘No, he’d gone. Been warned not to come back unless he wanted a bullet in his head. He was elsewhere. I didn’t think of him. Not until Cliona mentioned it.’

But a part of me knew I was lying to myself. A whisper of a memory crept back. Of my being wheeled out of the house on the stretcher. Of the ‘ghost’ I’d wondered if I’d seen in the doorway. Had it just been too horrific to contemplate? Had I ignored it or blocked it out?

‘Elizabeth was diagnosed as suffering from PTSD following the attack she sustained at the hands of her son and the death of her daughter,’ Cliona said. ‘She may have been unable to make the connection herself.’

Constable King got straight on her phone back to base, relayed the information and the description of Aaron I’d given. She left the room to talk and I broke down once again.

‘I didn’t think. I just didn’t think,’ I said. ‘What if it is him? What if I could have stopped it all before it happened? If I’d reported him back then?’

Cliona just held my hand. Told me that at least the police knew now. They could look now.

Constable King came back into the room a few minutes later.

‘Elizabeth, I know that you aren’t well, but it would be very useful to us if you could answer some questions.’

I nodded. I’d do whatever I could. But first I had to know.

‘Has Rachel Walker been found yet?’

Constable King shook her head.

‘And Michael, and my grandchildren? What’s happening?’