On the day we buried her, I looked around the church. My whole family was there, and we were a big family, the Baileys, and a well-known family to boot. My nana, Theresa Bailey, the matriarch, was sitting beside me, holding my hand. She was good to me, always. I could depend on her – she would never repeat my secrets. She knew more than any of them, and she kept it to herself. But then, if she had opened her mouth, there would have been another murder – we needed to keep the secret no matter what, and that is exactly what we did. I knew that I could never have coped without her, especially not that day.

My four brothers – all big, handsome, honourable men – sat on her other side and my father, broken by his wife’s death, and completely unaware of his only daughter’s shame, sat by me. It was how my mum died that was affecting him even more than just the loss of her. She had been taken in a heartbeat – those were his words, not mine.

I stood beside him, his youngest child and his only daughter, small-boned like my mother and with my parental grandmother’s thick auburn hair. But I had his eyes – the deep blue Irish eyes that showed every emotion and told the whole world what I was thinking, especially him and my brothers. I learned quickly to never let anyone know my true feelings and that is a sad testament to the life I live now. Knowledge is power and even the smallest slip can be enough to bring you down.

We were the Baileys – the most talked about and revered family in the East End – the foremost family in England, actually, for many a long year. We led charmed lives, we had everything – and I mean everything. My father, Daniel Bailey, saw to that.

As I held his hand on that cold bleak day, he slipped it into his coat pocket as he had when I was a small child. Even at nearly eighteen, I still appreciated the warmth and kindness behind the act. I knew my father was dangerous from the time I was a child, but I had not known just how dangerous he really was until recently. He had only ever done what he felt was needed; I understood that and, on that day, unhappy and devastated at the loss of my mother, I depended on him more than ever to bring me comfort.

My world had changed overnight. With my mum gone there was no one to shield me from my family’s real way of life. My mum, God love her, had done her best to make sure I never knew the real deal, but however hard she tried, I overheard more than was good for me. My family were murderers, liars, people for whom violence and intimidation were literally their daily bread.