Joe and I were quiet on the journey home, both of us thinking our own thoughts. The wind buffeted me and my hair kept going in my eyes. I held it back and gazed at the countryside, its greys and ochres sliding in the heat. We drove over bridges that crossed dried up rivers, passed old people fanning their weary faces and shepherds moving small herds of recalcitrant, long-legged sheep through Sicily’s rocky landscape, the pale stone colours dotted by the brilliant pinks, blues and yellows of wild flowers. I had fallen in love with the country, but it wasn’t my country nor my landscape; I didn’t belong here really. I didn’t understand Sicily, it was all contradictions, too much was understood but unspoken. Perhaps you had to be born here to know it properly.

My phone pinged. It was an email from an address I didn’t recognise, random letters, numbers and symbols. The subject line read: Bitch. I baulked at the word. I should have deleted the email straight away but I opened it and in the body was a copy of one of the more lurid newspaper reports of Daniel’s death. There was a picture of the building site, and the tent that was erected over the shaft where he had died. The headline read: Body found in search for missing Danny. We never called him ‘Danny’. Never. Only the media called him that. The subheading was: Who was REALLY to blame for little Danny’s death?

I’d read that article before, ten years earlier. I didn’t need to read it again because the phrasing haunted me still. It was a spiteful ‘think piece’ written by a female journalist who believed I was responsible for what had happened to Daniel because I hadn’t paid enough attention to Anna’s behaviour. She said I should have known it was dangerous to leave him with her, that any truly loving mother would have seen the risk. That article had pushed me closer to the edge than any of the other horrific things that happened in the wake of Daniel’s death. I hadn’t thought about it in years; until now.

I deleted the email, but no sooner had I done so than another popped into my inbox, then another. Each time, the subject line was ‘Bad Mother’ or something similar. I closed the app and dropped the phone into the footwell.

‘What is it?’ Joe asked.

‘They’ve got my email address,’ I said quietly.

‘Who has?’

‘They. Whoever’s doing this stuff to us. They know about Daniel.’

‘What have they said?’

‘They’re sending copies of the articles; the ones that blamed me.’

‘Fuck them,’ said Joe.

I nodded and kept my chin held high, but I didn’t feel strong. I felt as violated and shamed as I had done ten years earlier. I’d forgotten those feelings; it was shocking how easily they could be recalled.