It was a small village. She had already bullied half the school by then and Kathy wasn’t the type to keep anything to herself. Soon everyone would know. Long ago, in my naïve, pre-children days when I used to dream about my future family, I believed I would make friends with all the other local mothers. Our kids would play happily together in each other’s gardens; lasting friendships would be formed. Of course back then I believed we’d still be living in our old village, the one I myself had grown up in. But it wasn’t to be. Still, I’d hoped very much to be a part of this new community. It was to be a fresh start for us all. Yet here we were: my child was a pariah. She had no friends, was never invited anywhere to play. The other school mums would meet up regularly but never include me. And now this. I didn’t know how I’d be able to face going out in public again.

The next day, after dropping Hannah off at school, I drove to Peterborough library. I headed to the Psychology section and began to search. I scarcely knew what I was looking for until I found it, and when I did, I barely noticed my tears as they fell.

When Doug got home from work that night I was sitting on the sofa waiting for him. He’d got back late the night before so we hadn’t had a chance to talk properly about what Hannah had done and he looked at me warily as he came in.

‘I just want you to listen to me, OK?’ I said.

When he nodded and sat down next to me I handed him the wedge of photocopies I’d made that afternoon. He glanced at me, brow furrowed, before flicking through them. I held my breath.

Finally he looked up, his eyes wide. ‘Personality Disorders in Childhood?’ he said. ‘Early Warning Signs of Sociopathy? Are you serious?’

I leant towards him. ‘Doug, it’s time we faced facts. We can’t continue like this, Hannah set fire to Callum’s room, she hurt my eye so badly I had to go to A&E. She killed Lucy … then there’s the lying, the stealing, the bullying …’ I could hear my voice rising and I made myself stop and take a breath. ‘There’s something called Antisocial Personality Disorder and the books say there are certain red flags to look out for.’ Eagerly I took the printouts from him and flicked through until I found the one I wanted, reading aloud, ‘“Antisocial Personality Disorder and sociopathy can be traced back to childhood: desire to torture or kill animals; predilection for arson, manipulation of others. Lack of remorse, apparent absence of emotion …”’ I looked up at him. ‘Doug, there might as well be a picture of Hannah right next to this!’