Then it was the turn of the driver.

‘Mr Craven, if you could please state your version of events?’ asked the coroner.

Kate watched as the driver spoke. He seemed calm.

‘I was driving along Red Lion Street in a southerly direction, intending to turn left onto Sandland Street. I had taken a wrong turn and needed to get back onto Gray’s Inn Road. I had my lights on and was travelling at eighteen miles per hour. I saw Miss Ellis in my mirrors. She was at least fifteen metres behind me. I put my indicator on then, as I approached the junction, I started to brake and checked in my mirrors again before performing my turn. I did not see Miss Ellis. I stopped as soon as . . . as soon as the accident happened.’

‘And then what did you do?’

‘I got out of my cab and went to the side of the road. I was told the emergency services had already been called so I waited until the police arrived.’

The coroner nodded. ‘Thank you.’ Kate then saw him look over at her. ‘Ms Ellis, do you have anything you wish to ask Mr Craven?’

‘Yes, Your Worship.’

‘Please proceed.’

Kate trembled. This was it, her chance for the truth, for clarity. She looked at the driver, but his gaze was down towards his hands. ‘Why didn’t you see her?’ she asked.

He didn’t speak. Instead, his solicitor looked up. ‘My client has already said that he checked in his mirrors before turning left and did not see Miss Ellis.’

Kate bit back her frustration. ‘I know that . . . but what I don’t understand is why. In his opinion.’

The coroner interrupted. ‘I should remind you, Mr Craven, that you do not have to say anything that may be incriminating.’

Just speak, pleaded Kate silently, just tell me. Tell me what happened because I can’t bear not knowing. You are the only person in the world who knows how it happened. At least give me this. Give me some explanation I can live with.

She watched as the driver turned to his solicitor and they conversed in low voices. Then the solicitor looked up.

‘Mr Craven feels that he has given all the information he can on this point and has nothing further to add.’

Kate felt something collapse, something die inside of her, and she knew the pain would never go away. She’d never know what really happened to her daughter.

She barely heard what was said in the last few minutes of the inquest, and it was only when Tim squeezed her hand that she saw the coroner look up from his notes and begin to speak.

‘The deceased was Miss Becky Ellis who died at seventeen twenty-nine on Friday the twenty-fourth of February 2017 at the junction of Red Lion Street and Sandland Street in London. The means of death was collision with a heavy goods vehicle. My verdict is accidental death.’