I knew I shouldn’t, but I took my phone from my bag anyway and scrolled down until I got to Michael’s number. I hit the call button and listened as it went straight to his voicemail. I was surprised at just how disappointed I felt that it had. I scrolled up my phone until I saw Clare’s name. I wondered whether the police had uncovered any information from her phone – were they any closer to catching who was responsible? I dialled her number, listened to her voice telling me to leave a message or, better still, to send a text because she never checked her voicemail.

I ached for her, in that moment. Wanted to say all the things I never had because you never think you’re going to run out of time. Certainly not so quickly. So violently. You assume the world is good and kind. You assume bad things won’t happen to the people you love. You assume these kind of things only happen on late night TV dramas.

A strange notion overcame me, and I put my phone and my coffee down, put the car into first gear and drove off.

The road had been reopened on Friday evening. You wouldn’t have known driving along it that just three days before something so horrific had happened here. The faint buzzing of bees filled the air and a heat haze sat over the long grass of the fields. The tarmac road was dusty, the potholes long since dried up of their puddles of stagnant water.

I wasn’t sure where on the long road she’d been found. I drove slowly, imagining what had been going through her mind as she’d driven down this road last. Had she known what was awaiting her? Did she know what this monster had intended to do? If it was, indeed, the man she’d been in a relationship with, did she know that he didn’t love her, after all? That he was going to hurt her? I hoped she hadn’t known until the very last minute. I hoped she’d been blissfully unaware: calm, not scared. I couldn’t bear to think of her trying to scramble to safety.

I followed a small bend in the road and saw them. The Taylors, walking with their backs to me towards their car. At the side of the road, Ronan stood at a gap in the hedgerow, his head bowed, his eyes closed. I slowed the car, pulled over to the side, and waited for Mr and Mrs Taylor to set off before I switched off my engine and walked up to where Ronan stood.

I said his name softly, reached out and touched his shoulder. He turned to look at me.

‘I just came for a drive,’ I said. ‘Felt the need to come past here. This … this is where it happened?’