She told me that she felt she’d never been accepted by any of them. Watching them interact with each other I could see that was true.

Just after ten thirty, or thereabouts, I’d gone upstairs to get Lily, stopping to use the bathroom first. I was so tired, I could feel my eyes starting to droop. I splashed my face with cold water, pushed the bathroom window open wide and had allowed the fresh, ice-cold air to wash over me. I prayed that Lily would sleep through the night. Both Heidi and I needed the rest.

I had just closed the window when I heard a strange, strangulated cough from Joe’s room, which was just next door.

I tapped on his bedroom door, quietly said his name in case he was sleeping, and opened it just a crack.

‘Are you okay, Joe?’ I asked, looking at the figure lying in the bed.

His bedside light was still on, an empty teacup on his locker, a notebook or diary and pen discarded on the bed. I could hear the faintest of rattles, so I moved closer.

‘Joe?’ I asked again, a little louder but not much.

He didn’t move. His eyes didn’t even flicker. I wasn’t sure for a moment or two if he was breathing, and then there it was again – a sickening gargling sound, not quite a breath but maybe. He went still. I couldn’t hear another breath. I started to panic a little, sat down on the edge of the bed and took his hand in mine, tried to feel for a pulse. I couldn’t feel one, or maybe I could. But it was so weak, I just wasn’t sure.

I reached over to grab his other hand, thinking maybe I’d get a better reading from his other wrist, but as I stepped closer my foot caught on something on the floor. I looked down and there was a book, what looked like a diary, and it was open. I don’t know, I’ll never know, what it was that made me look a little closer rather than just kick it under the bed, but I did and my stomach contracted.

I didn’t read it all. I swear I didn’t read it all. Not at first. Just words that were blurring together and then spinning. Snapshots. But enough, more than enough, to make me want to hurt Joe McKee more than I ever wanted to hurt anyone in my life.

Girls. Child. Sick. Hurt. Perverted. Illness. Abuse. Sorry.

The words became more important than the pulse I was supposed to be looking for. I stopped focusing on how frequently he was breathing. Any instinct I’d had to try to help or call for help slipped away. I reached for the book, turned it around. Focused on the words.

A confession of sorts. He needed to get it off his chest. He was sorry. He was a sick man. He had always been a sick man and he had tried to control it but he was weak.