Feeling marginally better after a good wash and brush-up – no time for a shave as well – Patrick dressed in a suit and clean shirt, selecting a tie from a collection of almost identical ones all jumbled together in a shoebox under his bed. He loathed having to wear a tie, and consequently made sure that if he did have to, it was unobtrusive and skinny to the point of anorexia.

Along with the box of ties and all the other dust-coated junk beneath the bed were several fat books that he’d bought in the weeks following Gill’s breakdown, thinking they might help him understand, see what he’d missed, what he could have done better. Post-Natal Depression: A Guide for Partners. Women Who Harm: The Psychology of Female Violence. Then there was one called The Snapping Point, a huge brick of a book by Dr Samuel Koppler. This was the one he’d found most helpful, that gave him some understanding how Gill must have felt in those black days. Ultimately he had shoved the books beneath the bed. They made him feel too guilty, convinced that he should have seen what was going on at home. But he had been so busy, tired all the time. Having a baby was such relentless hard work that his senses and instincts were dulled to the point that he hadn’t been thinking straight. That was his excuse, anyway. It didn’t make him feel any better.

He was sweating again by the time he got back downstairs, where Jim was back in his armchair and Bonnie in the kitchen ‘helping’ Mairead make cheese sandwiches.

‘I have to get back. I told Bon I’d drop you both off at playgroup on the way, but we’d have to leave now,’ he said to his mother, swiping at Bonnie’s buttery hands with a damp cloth. A greasy butter stain on his suit was the last thing he needed right before the press conference.

‘Thanks love, right, I’ll take the sarnies with us then,’ said Mairead, getting out a roll of clingfilm from a kitchen cupboard. She had never learned to drive, and Jim hadn’t got around to changing the flat tyre on their ancient Peugeot 107, so she had to walk everywhere with Bonnie in a pushchair, unless Patrick could give them a lift. Patrick looked at his watch. ‘Don’t want to rush you, Mum, but I have to leave RIGHT now,’ he said. ‘Got a press conference at two.’

Mairead’s head jerked up. ‘What for?’

‘You’ll hear it on the news later – but we found Isabel Hartley.’

His mother’s hand flew to her mouth. It was clear from Patrick’s grim tone that it hadn’t ended well. ‘Oh that poor, poor mite. And her poor parents!’