Elizabeth raised her hand. ‘There’s no need for apologies there, either,’ she said. ‘Laura was a troubled person. I don’t think any one person or group can be blamed for what happened to her. I had to learn that after her death. It wasn’t easy, but there’s no other way to think of it without losing one’s mind. And don’t you think enough people have lost their mind already?’

I nodded.

She gave me a small smile, but her face was as tear-stained as mine.

‘Do you have people to help you and support you?’ I asked, all too aware that both of her children were now dead.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I have my son-in-law. Michael.’

I started at the mention of his name. She paused for just a second.

‘The real Michael. He’s a good man, you know. I have him and my grandchildren. Laura’s children, Max and Ava. And Cliona here has been a star,’ she said, nodding towards the red-haired woman. ‘And you? Will you be okay?’

‘I think so,’ I said and we sat, looking at each other, thinking of all that we could say but wouldn’t.

It didn’t really matter now, did it? We just had to learn to live with what had happened and rebuild our lives as best we could.

Wednesday, 20 June

Epilogue

Rachel

Clare was finally laid to rest on a blisteringly hot Wednesday morning. We all felt not only a sense of relief at finally being able to bring her to her final resting place, but also an overwhelming sense of sadness at the unfairness of it all. We knew our grief was only really beginning. We knew it would never really make sense.

Some names scrawled on the back of a random photograph was all it took for Aaron O’Loughlin to choose his victims.

An associate of Aaron’s from Wales, where he’d moved after leaving Derry, had sold his story to Ingrid Devlin. He said Aaron had become obsessed with the idea of ‘making things right’ and rebuilding bridges with his mother. But he’d also talked incessantly about justice. About the need for people to be made accountable for their actions. He’d said he’d do what the police didn’t have the guts to.

It wasn’t of importance to him that none of us had any real connection with Laura’s suicide. He had to be angry with someone, the trauma counsellor who’d been appointed to me had said at my first session.

It didn’t really matter though, did it? No amount of soul-searching or navel-gazing would bring Clare back. She was gone. Her coffin was proof of that. Paul had helped to carry it from the church and I’d felt sick imagining that he could so easily have been carrying my coffin.