Carol Bubchek stands at her sink, looking across the street to the large detached house opposite. Its lawn is neatly mown and a discreet For Sale sign sits outside. But this is the house where, just last year, a horrific triple murder took place—and Mrs Bubchek, 61, was a key witness for the prosecution.

She points for me now, recreating the moment. “I was at the sink, I had my morning soap on, so I know what time it was. I was filling my coffee maker, and I saw her. I noticed because people don’t really walk on our street, but she did. It was sorta strange.” She being the nanny from the house opposite, Casey Adams, an English woman of nineteen. “She had the baby, and he was cranky—I could hear him through the window. Well, no wonder, poor little mite, it was a hundred degrees out! But she was walking him.”

I ask if she saw whether the door of the house was left ajar or not. Adams had claimed that on her return, just a few minutes later, the door was open, though she could not remember if she’d done that herself or not. Bubchek shakes her head. “Can’t see that far.” She wears thick-lensed glasses on a jewelled string round her neck. I ask what happened next. “She came back, the baby was still cranky. She went inside. Then I didn’t see or hear anything until the police came racing up, and that was, oh, maybe ten, fifteen minutes after.”

The call to police dispatch came in at 11.08 am. Mrs Bubchek is adamant she saw Adams go back into the house sometime before eleven, as her soap was still playing. “So what was she doing all that time? It doesn’t take you ten minutes to report a triple murder, does it?”

Rachel

Rachel

I didn’t quite understand what was happening. I wasn’t being charged yet for some reason, despite my unquestionable motive for wanting Anna gone, the fact I had found her body and inexplicably told no one, lied about it when asked.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked, as the sergeant handed me a transparent plastic bag of possessions, minus my clothes, which had gone for forensics testing. I was surprised to see my phone in there – had they already checked it and realised I only used its most basic features, texts and calls? ‘You’re being released on bail for twenty-eight days, under investigation.’ Her face was unreadable. ‘You must not interfere with the case in any way, or with other witnesses, and you must report to the station when asked.’

Clearly, there was not enough evidence to charge me. I had enough sense not to say anything more. I was also relieved that, after my experience of American justice, there was no bail charge here. I was simply free to leave, for now anyway.