She survived only until the next morning, when her heart gave out completely.

If she had only let them take it. But that wasn’t Mrs Mack’s way. So they tied her to a chair and tortured her until she told them where she had hidden the box.

It was because of me that she had moved it, you see. She knew that I had stolen from her and this is something I think about often. About how let down she must have felt, as though her day had already got as bad as it would be. But the real horror was still to come.

They held lit cigarettes against her papery skin, and beat her with the flex of her iron. Coronation Street and The Bill on top volume hid the sounds of her pain and distress. Her terror.

I didn’t go and tell the police about my own likely role in what had happened. I was too scared and sick, especially after seeing Jason the next morning and him giving me a sly smile before quietly miming a cut-throat gesture.

They were caught, anyway. Too stupid and high not to try and fence her other belongings locally. Both men got life imprisonment for murder.

They may have held those burning tips against her fragile skin and whipped her until they broke her, but they couldn’t have done it without my help.

So now you really know who you are dealing with.

As I got closer to Casterbourne, I dragged my thoughts back to what I had done today. I had managed to achieve exactly what I had set out to do – convince Irene Copeland that her son had committed suicide and most definitely hadn’t been pushed off a cliff by my wife. I had to protect Anya. She was my number one priority. She had been carrying around this nightmare for fifteen years and she was finally free.

And yet. Something was nagging uncomfortably at me and I couldn’t quite place its bruised centre.

I decided I was going to tell her everything about today, but I was going to get the whole truth from her in the process. I had looked that woman in the eye and lied to her. I could see how it had broken her heart to hear that Michael had killed himself and, however many times I told myself that was a ‘better’ truth than that he had been a creepy stalker who fell to his death while in hot pursuit of an innocent young woman, it didn’t make me feel any better.

By the time I pulled into Casterbourne the rain was beginning to ease a little but my eyes were aching from the hard drive.

The house was quiet and unlit. I knew Anya wouldn’t be home for another couple of hours yet.