I screw my eyes tight shut and force myself not to think of his hands on Catherine’s neck. If only he’d been strong enough to walk away. To carry me into the car and let her go. Maybe, in time, I might have forgiven him. Not enough to stay with him—never that—but enough to let him see his son from time to time, to have some kind of presence in his life. And I’d have spoken up for him if she’d done what he thought she might do, if she’d tried to level some kind of sexual allegation at him.

A fresh spasm of horror ripples through me when I think of Catherine’s blood-engorged face, her dead, staring eyes. My therapist recommends doing something physical whenever my mind insists on returning to that moment, on replaying it over and over. So I clamber to my feet and start tidying up some of the wrapping paper still strewn about the floor. Folding the pieces that can be recycled and setting them aside in a neat little pile. My world might have changed beyond all recognition, but life goes on. It has to. And sometimes it’s little tasks like these that keep me sane, that quieten the noise in my head.

Dad watches me, a mixture of sadness and pride in his eyes. He’s told me he doesn’t mind if I want to contact Mick Dawson in the future, if I need to talk to him and tell him that I know. But I don’t want to. I know I can’t speak for my future self, but I’m pretty sure that I won’t change my mind. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t go to Catherine’s funeral. Because I didn’t want to see him, and I don’t expect he and Sheena would have wanted me there anyway. Both their daughters are dead and I was with them both when they died. I still can’t get my head round it, so most of the time I don’t even try.

Mum and Dad want me to move back in with them permanently, but I’ve said no. It would be so easy to let them carry on looking after us, to stay in this little cocoon of love, but after everything that’s happened and what’s brought me to this point, I know it’s time for me to live on my own, to be independent at last.