In my anger, I kicked the leg of the kitchen table so hard that I made Izzy yelp in fright and I was pretty sure I’d also broken at least one of my toes. That horrible woman was going to make a salacious headline of my daughter’s death – as if we all hadn’t suffered enough. That time – and the months that had followed – had been the darkest of my life. I’d been left emotionally, mentally and physically broken, and it had taken me a long time to piece myself back together again. I wasn’t sure I could relive any of it.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Rachel

I’d pulled Beth into a hug and rocked gently back and forth while I told her that no one knew all the facts yet. Sure, the media were in the business of selling papers and getting Internet hits, but you couldn’t always believe what you read. I advised her it might be better for her if she kept her distance from social media for a bit. Rumours can very easily get out of hand. However, telling a fifteen-year-old to stay off social media seemed like a cruel and unusual punishment in her eyes.

‘I can’t do that. I won’t be able to talk to all my friends,’ she said.

‘Can you not, you know, just phone each other and have actual conversations instead?’ I asked.

The roll of her eyes was enough to let me know that wasn’t a viable option.

‘This is hard enough,’ she said. ‘All of this is hard enough without being banned from going online or talking to my friends, too. They’re the only things keeping me sane now. They understand in a way you and Dad never could understand.’

Part of me wanted to argue back with her, but that same part of me remembered what it had been like to be fifteen myself. When it was Julie, Clare and me against the world. We thought no one could ever be friends like us. No friendship was as strong as ours. No matter the drama, the only people I was sure who could understand me were my friends. If my parents had tried to block contact between us, I would have been utterly bereft. The thought of not seeing them …

The reality that I wouldn’t see Clare again came at me like a wave. I choked back my emotions and pulled Beth into another hug.

‘You’re right, darling. Of course you are. I’m just trying to protect you from the world and all this horrible information about Clare’s death. What happened was wrong and cruel and brutal, and I’m afraid you’re going to hear things over the next few days and weeks that are going to be hugely upsetting. Not all of it’s going to be true, either.’

‘Why did they do it, Mum?’ she asked. ‘I don’t understand.’