He rolled his eyes. ‘I think the best thing we can do for them both now is to try to keep things as normal as possible. That means keeping them here.’

‘And you will come home each night?’ I asked.

‘Well, I have a few late meetings, but if it means that much to you …’

He let it trail off as if my friend’s murder was some massive inconvenience to him. As if I was being unreasonable to ask him to commute back and forth while this hung over our heads. I suddenly felt so very tired of it all.

‘Paul, it’s not that it means so much to me. It’s that I need help. I’m grieving and I’m scared, and I don’t know how to be there for the girls and hold myself up at the same time.’ My voice broke and even though I’d been determined that I wouldn’t cry, I felt tears prick at my eyes. ‘And I know we’re broken, by the way. Whatever this is between us.’

He didn’t speak for a moment. He just looked at me, his mouth open just a little as if trying to find something to say that would prove I was wrong. As if he was trying to find the right words of reassurance, but we both knew it had gone beyond that now.

‘You’re being overly dramatic,’ he eventually said, dropping his eye contact for just a second too long.

‘My friend has been murdered and I’m being overly dramatic?’ I struggled to keep the incredulity from my voice.

‘Well no, not about that, but about us being broken. That’s ridiculous.’

I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I knew starting this conversation would take us down a very dangerous road, but how could I not ask?

‘Is it? Is it really? Because I feel it. Every day. We’ve become so distant with each other. You’ve become so distant. So much so … I’ve started to wonder …’ I paused for a moment. ‘Paul, are you having an affair?’ I asked.

He stood up and looked at me, shaking his head. ‘You think what you want to think, Rachel. You always do anyway.’

At that he stormed out, lifting his keys and slamming the front door behind him.

Monday, 11 June

Chapter Twenty-Six

‘Warn them’

Murder victim’s chilling last words provoke fear killer will strike again

The woman who held murder victim Clare Taylor’s hand as she died has revealed the 41-year-old’s chilling last words.

Retired nurse, Elizabeth O’Loughlin, who came across the fatally injured Civil Servant while walking her dog, has exclusively revealed to The Chronicle that just before she died, Clare Taylor pleaded with Elizabeth to ‘Warn them’.