There followed a couple of interviews with eye witnesses to the accident, one of them a guy with a beard who tried to stop the woman leaving the scene. His name was Martin Dacre and he described her as being in her late twenties or early thirties.

‘She’s rather pretty and has an accent,’ he said. ‘She also has dark hair and some of it was poking out from under her hat.’

Young and pretty, he’d said. I found it hard to believe he was describing a heartless murderer. But then killers these days came in every shape, size and gender. We lived in a world where children carried out terrorist attacks, deranged nurses slaughtered their patients, and young, intelligent men deliberately drove vans into crowds of people.

During the next couple of hours I took calls from several of my colleagues, including Janet Dean and Kate Chappell. They were anxious to know how I was. Kate said she would try to come along to the hospital.

I desperately wanted to tell her about the miscarriage. I wanted her to know that I had lost my baby. But I held back because I decided it was a bad idea.

To everyone else what had happened to me was just collateral damage. In the scheme of things it wasn’t significant. After all, my baby had been a mere embryo, the size of a blueberry apparently, its internal organs not even developed.

So how could that compare – in their eyes – to the murders of Dave Prentiss and Marion Nash?

I phoned my mother and Aidan’s parents to update them on his condition. They’d all seen the news on the TV and were finding it impossible to comprehend what was happening.

This time I spoke to Aidan’s mum, Veronica, and for the first time since I’d known her I heard her cry. I tried to reassure her that her son was going to be all right, but when I told her about the complications it was my turn to break down and sob.

I’d been trying to hold it in, but I wasn’t strong enough. The tears burned tracks down my cheeks and for at least a minute I couldn’t speak.

When finally I was back in control, I said, ‘I’m sitting with Aidan now and he’s sleeping soundly. He should be awake soon and I’ll tell him you’re on your way here.’

The couple had managed to get seats on a morning flight from Alicante and were hoping to arrive at the hospital early afternoon.

Aidan emerged from his drug-induced slumber at 7am and could only vaguely remember what had happened to him. The first words out of his mouth were, ‘My shoulder really hurts.’

‘It won’t for long,’ I said. ‘I’ll get the nurse to give you more medicine for the pain.’