‘We’re doing our best to protect your identity. We’ve not released any of your details to the press; nor have they been discussed outside the confines of the incident room.’

He must have noticed the colour draining from me. The police may have kept it under wraps, but I’d been to see the Taylors. Had they been warned to say nothing about my identity? And those two women who’d been drinking tea with Ronan in the kitchen. Who were they?

‘Mrs O’Loughlin, at the moment we have no reason to believe at all that you’re in any danger,’ DI Bradley said, cutting through my thoughts. ‘We intend on it staying that way, but we’re reviewing the situation as often as the need arises.’

I nodded, but I couldn’t push down the nausea increasing in my stomach, nor stop the thudding of my heart. I’d have to check all the locks in the house. Get that security light in the yard fixed. It had broken at least six months ago and I’d kept meaning to get it looked at.

‘The investigation’s proving more complex than we thought,’ he said. ‘We hope the press conference later will jog some memories or bring some more information to light. We just ask that in the meantime you trust us and trust what we’re doing.’

I was hardly in a position to say no.

As I left the police station and walked out into the hot morning air, the brightness of the sun in my eyes, I felt a growing sense of unease wash over me. I cursed myself for going for my walk on Wednesday morning. I should have stayed inside. Things would have been easier if I’d just stayed inside.

My body tensed, my muscles aching. Stress, they say, makes every ache and pain flare up. Fibromyalgia, the doctor told me. On top of the nerve damage from my fall. Physical pain to match the mental anguish I lived with every day.

As I walked my ageing, aching body back to my car, part of me hoped that whoever it was that had brought this horrific end to Clare Taylor would come back and end my life, too.

Chapter Thirteen

Rachel

The press conference was timed to hit the evening news. Paul questioned whether or not it was wise for me to watch.

‘It’s not going to tell you anything you don’t already know,’ he said, but of course he didn’t know that for certain.

‘I’m just trying to protect you from further upset,’ he said, when I told him I felt I had to watch.

‘My upset isn’t going to go away, Paul. That’s not how it works,’ I snapped at him.

‘I just don’t see why you have to torture yourself with the details,’ he said. ‘Once you hear things, you can’t un-hear them. They’ll stick with you.’