Without even thinking about it, I numbly pick up the bloodied knife from where it still lies on the hall floor and wrap my fingers around it. I can’t allow him to paint her as a monster and say he’d acted in self-defence. He has to pay for what he’s put Mom through, and if it means I have to chance my own liberty to make sure he gets what he deserves, then I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to get justice for her.

‘Naomi!’ calls out Leon from somewhere far away. ‘Naomi!’

As my eyes begin to focus and I see him looking down at me, I’m suddenly fearful that he’s seen the movie that’s been playing in my head. I’ve never told him what really happened that day and how my lie ensured my father went to prison for a very long time. But I vow that once this is over, I’ll be honest with him from now on, about everything.

‘Are you OK?’ he says, gently lifting me up to a sitting position.

I nod slowly.

‘Once you’re feeling better, Mrs Chandler, I’m going to need you to come down to the station,’ says a woman who I thought had only existed in my catatonic state.

I look at her face and it suddenly all comes back to me. Michael . . . Vanessa . . . the emails, the CCTV, the pool . . .

He can’t be dead; he just can’t be. They’ve got this wrong.

‘But I saw him do it,’ I say. ‘She was dead.’

Robson narrows her eyes as she looks at me. ‘Mrs Talbot doesn’t have any injuries apart from a small cut to the back of her head when she fell. Mr Talbot, however, has a knife wound in his back, and another in his chest.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I cry, as Leon wraps an arm around me. ‘I was so sure she was dead.’

‘Was that what you were hoping?’ asks Robson.

I will myself to stay calm and not rise to her line of questioning.

‘Tell me about the beach hut,’ she presses, her gaze unwavering.

‘Beach hut?’ I repeat, unsure of what she means.

‘Down at Tankerton.’

‘Right . . . that’s where I met Anna,’ I say, before correcting myself. ‘Vanessa, I mean. She was there yesterday, threatening to kill herself, so I went to try to talk her down.’

‘You seem to have forged quite the relationship with Mrs Talbot,’ says Robson.

‘As I keep telling you, I will do anything I can to help my clients,’ I say, tempering my frustration.

Robson nods. ‘And yet she says she’s never met you before tonight.’

Every single nerve ending in my body stands to attention, sending a frisson of electricity from my fingertips to my toes. I clasp my hands together to stop them from shaking, but I can’t still the trembling inside.