She’d left instructions. Told him to call the police. Told him not to go after her himself. She’d told him where she’d be. She’d asked him to forgive her. She’d asked him to tell the children she’d got sick and died. ‘It’s the truth, after all,’ she’d written. ‘A part of me has always been sick.’

He’d called the police. He did go after her. He’d bundled the kids into the neighbour’s house and he drove as fast as traffic would allow until he’d reached the place she said she’d be. He drove his car as far as he could, not overly familiar with the site, and then he’d run in the dark and the rain, the torch on his phone guiding the way, trying to find her. He could hear the sirens of the police and ambulance approach, but on he ran.

Until he found her. But she was gone.

It was too late. There was nothing anyone could have done to fix her then.

I try not to think about what he saw, but it haunts me in the night. Just as the image of her in the morgue haunts me. She’d taken no chances. She’d hung herself from some old railings and she’d also slashed her wrists. She’d taken some time to die, the pathologist believed. Strangled. No quick break of her neck.

Her husband had tried to lift her, even though he knew it was too late. Police arrived to him covered in his wife’s blood, holding her up by the legs, screaming at her to come back.

I’d learned very quickly that it didn’t matter how much anyone screamed, Laura wasn’t coming back. I’d never see her again and I’d never really understand why my beautiful girl believed that she was so broken she no longer deserved a place in this world.

Chapter Nineteen

Rachel

I was still in some sort of shock about what had just happened with Michael when I arrived at Julie’s. At least, I thought with a grimace, it distracted in some small way from what Julie had told me on the phone. I noticed Brendan’s car wasn’t outside and the front door was ajar.

When I walked in she was sitting on the sofa, smoking. She looked as if she hadn’t slept since we’d left the Taylors. She was still in pyjamas, despite it having gone eleven, and her hair was tangled and knotted at the top of her head. There was a mug of tea sitting on the coffee table in front of her, but there was also a quarter bottle of vodka, with its distinctive red lid unscrewed, sitting beside a glass with ice.

Julie must have noticed me looking at it.