I’d like to think it was just to save the baby, to save myself, but part of it was because he thought I loved him. This pathetic man, who’d murdered his family, and he still thought I wanted to run away with him.

I had never fired a gun before and wasn’t expecting the kickback, which spun me around and made Carson wail. David staggered back, blood spraying from his stomach. He fell on to the marble floor of the hallway, hitting his head with a crack.

You don’t shoot yourself in the stomach if you want to die. No one would have believed that for a second. When he went down, a look of extreme surprise crossed his face, and he pulled himself a few inches across the floor, leaving a horrible trail of blood. Then suddenly the look on his face snuffed out.

The house was so quiet. Not a car outside, and not a bird singing. Only me and my panicked breathing, and the baby clinging to me. Carson had stopped crying in shock at the sound of the gunshot.

There were many things I could have done. Called the police and told them the truth, hoped they would believe me – perhaps there was some evidence to show that David had done this, that I had just been defending myself and the baby. Or I could have run, taken the car keys from the hall table and fled. Carson and I could have lived our lives somewhere quiet by the sea, and he would have been mine for ever. But that was crazy. That was kidnapping, on top of everything else.

Instead, I backed away, into the cupboard. I dropped the gun beside David, not even thinking to wipe my prints off it. My phone was in my pocket still, a heavy weight.

There was a spot of blood on the baby’s head, so I rubbed it off and kissed him. His sweet baby smell. Very soon he would be taken from me and I would never see him again. But I didn’t know any of that then. I didn’t know I’d be sent to prison, sentenced to death. I didn’t know that my life had completely and irrevocably changed. I just knew that I was alive and I had saved the baby. Holding Carson close against me, his every breath proof I had done the right thing, I dialled a number from my phone. It rang a few times, then was answered. ‘Mum,’ I said, gulping down terror and shock. ‘Mum, it’s me. Something terrible’s happened.’

Rachel

Rachel

When I’d finished telling Carson the truth about what went on that day, his face was stiff and pale.

‘He wanted to kill me too? Dad?’

‘It’s how they – normally do it. These men.’