I shrug. I only know what I see in front of me.

‘And if they had the diaries, and he’d written his confession of sorts, wouldn’t they have found it? DI Bradley seems very thorough.’

‘I don’t know, Heidi.’

I can hear a harsh, frustrated tone to my voice. I was just angry that it was gone. I wanted to have proof. I wanted to have his apology to look at. It was the only thing I wanted from that man.

She winces at my tone and I apologise. Sincerely. Explain that I’m stressed. She nods. She understands. She feels it too.

‘I’ll call DI Bradley,’ I tell her. ‘Ask him outright. Tell him where to look if he has the diary to see what Joe wrote.’

‘You’re okay about all of this – what he did – becoming public?’ Heidi asks.

I see the worry, the fear in her eyes.

‘I’m not okay with it,’ I tell her truthfully, ‘but it’s the right thing to do. For me. For you and for Alex. We’ve nothing to be ashamed of, Heidi. We never asked to be abused.’

Her bottom lip is trembling and I watch tears spill over from her eyes and run down her cheeks.

I reach out my hand to her, a gesture that would have seemed insane just an hour ago, and to my surprise she reaches back.

‘My phone’s downstairs. Let’s go phone DI Bradley and get this all sorted once and for all.’

‘But what about all their evidence? Injuries and suffocation and whatever? Won’t they say Alex is lying?’

She looks frightened. Vulnerable. I feel so very sorry for her. Her life has been lacking in any real security for so long.

I wish I could reassure her, but I can’t. I can only give her hand a squeeze.

‘We have to trust that the truth will be enough. Something else must’ve happened to make him take so ill.’

‘Or someone else hurt him first,’ Heidi says.

But I can’t help but feel she is grasping at straws. I suppose I’d do the same if it was Stella in the frame.

Unable to speak, I just shrug at Heidi and lead her downstairs. The first step is to call DI Bradley, I think. Get him to come here.

We go back downstairs to fetch my phone. Alex is still in the living room, his head in his hands. He looks up at us expectantly, and sags again when Heidi shakes her head.

‘Alex, we’re going to call DI Bradley now. We’re going to tell him everything,’ I say as calmly as I can.

He nods and Heidi sits beside him and holds him to her as he cries.

I pick up the phone and call the number DI Bradley had given me.

This is all such a mess.

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Heidi

Now

I gave up believing in God a long time ago. Probably around the time my mother died. I couldn’t understand how any god, who my teachers described to me as loving and caring, would take a mammy away from their only child. And if that is hard to get my head around, I sure as hell can’t understand how any god would let what is going to happen next happen.