When I hung up, I looked at the expectant faces of Julie, Constable King and her colleague.

‘There was a rhyme in mine, too, but it’s not green bottles. I don’t know what it is.’

I repeated the words Paul had read down the phone to me. Julie and Constable King looked at me blankly. Her colleague, Constable Black, a sturdily built man at least six feet in height, cleared his throat and spoke.

‘It’s The Mikado. The opera? Gilbert and Sullivan. You know, the one that goes “Three little maids from school are we”?’ He sang the words to the song in a falsetto voice that seemed at extreme odds with his appearance.

On any other occasion it would have made me laugh – the sight of this tall, well-built man in uniform singing about being a schoolgirl. But this didn’t make me laugh. Julie and I had received these flowers. Another bunch had been left where Clare died. And two of the messages made vague references to our schooldays – our group of three. I felt tears prick at my eyes. Heard Julie mutter: ‘Oh, God …’

‘I think we need to bring this to the immediate attention of the DI,’ Constable King said.

‘Is whoever did this coming for us?’ Julie asked, her eyes wide.

Constable King shook her head, but I could tell she wasn’t convinced.

‘It’s important that we all try to keep calm now,’ she said. ‘Things like this, they bring all sorts of weirdos out of the woodwork. There’s nothing to say it was the killer who left these – it could just be someone’s idea of a sick joke, someone with a grudge.’

She looked at me and I tried to think who, if anyone, might have a grudge against us. We weren’t the kind of people to make enemies. We lived our lives. We’d spent most of the last couple of years just trying to hold on against the trauma of Clare’s marriage breaking up, my mother dying … I shook my head. Julie just looked at me, as if she needed me to tell her it was all going to be okay. But I couldn’t. Could I? The knot in the pit of my stomach grew tighter, heavier. I thought I might be sick.

Constable King left the room to call her superior officer while Constable Black perched uncomfortably on the edge of an armchair.

Julie spoke first.

‘I need to call Brendan. Get him to take the kids to his mum’s. Should I go to his mum’s, too? Or what if that puts us all in danger?’