I suppose complacency becomes inevitable when one’s actions go so long undetected. For years my deeds were shielded by people’s incredulity that a woman could be capable of such things. She is the angel of the house, entrusted with the care of those around her. People would not believe that I was killing their loved ones because they simply could not afford to. Where would our society be were women to resist our given roles, to slough off what we are told is our gentle nature?

But do not make the mistake of thinking me uncaring, incapable of feeling, incapable of love. No, I am not a mother. But I know what it is to care for a child, for I have been charged with the care of many, most recently little Eleanor. I understood how her fragility and vulnerability made her all the more precious. I understood the hope that she represented to her parents, the essence of themselves they saw reflected in her features. I had a profound appreciation of just how much she meant to them. Otherwise how could I have derived such a sense of power and accomplishment by taking it away?

Nobody knows the value of a life who has not ended one. And there is nothing so precious as snuffing out the life of someone so young, someone uncomprehending of the enormity of what is happening to them, or of how much they are about to lose.

I loved little Eleanor. Who could not? She was such a darling. I still picture the sparkle in her eyes, the energy she had, the joy her curiosity and mischievousness brought to her parents. She was a clever girl, strong-willed and with good instincts. She fought me, in her own unknowing way. But her parents were recruited as my allies, not hers, as they urged her to do as I bid.

‘You have to take the medicine,’ they would insist.

‘I don’t like it,’ Eleanor would say. ‘And I don’t like her.’

‘She just wants to make you better.’

But I did not.

To me, other people’s grief is like fine wine, and I do not mean merely that I savour it; I appreciate the many different flavours and textures, the subtle notes that distinguish one variety from another. When Eleanor died, her parents’ grief was a powerful thing to witness. You might well have found it intolerable to behold, in which case you might say it was a mercy then, on my part, that I would soon bring it to an end.

I killed her mother, and shortly after that her father. Last of all, I killed the matriarch of the household, her grandmother. I wanted her to witness this devastation before she was taken too. She deserved to suffer. I had encountered her sort before. But we will get to that, in time.