Heather tried to wrestle the gun from Flora’s grasp. But it went off and the bullet struck Heather in the chest. She stumbled and hit her head. Flora thought she had killed her. She was so devastated that she no longer cared what happened to her. She took Heather’s car (‘God knows how she drove it when she’s never had a lesson even if it is an automatic,’ said Margot) and headed for Deirdre’s house in Tilby. She knew the road name as she’d heard them talking about it. The West Ham sticker in the window made her sure she was entering the right house.

After she’d shot them she took a bus back to Bristol. She was too scared to hand herself in, instead managing to score heroin and sleeping rough. One day she saw me coming home from work and followed me, dossing down in the derelict building opposite. Apparently she was trying to reach out to me. She worked out which apartment was mine and then she managed to sneak into my building behind a neighbour and pushed the bus ticket through my letterbox in an attempt to tell me she was in Bristol. But I hadn’t made the connection because I’d thought Flora was dead.

‘She thought she’d killed Heather,’ Margot finishes. ‘And she was scared to come forward. She told the police everything before her stroke. Gary,’ she coughs, ‘um, DCI Ruthgow, has been amazing. Heather will face no charge. And poor Flora …’

‘What will happen to Flora now?’ Surely she won’t be prosecuted for murder, not after everything they did to her and what she’s been through.

Angela at the police press office told me earlier that this was just the tip of the iceberg. Clive had been prolific and Flora was getting too old for him. If Heather hadn’t found her when she had, I’ve no doubt Clive would have killed her. Maybe he would have given her just that little bit too much heroin and buried her in the basement too.

It was just by chance that Clive and Deirdre had bumped into Flora that August night. They’d been coming back from the fair where Clive and Norman had been doing some dodgy drugs deal. Apparently, according to Margot, Clive had recognized Flora from the fair and had taken the opportunity to lure her into the car, knowing she wouldn’t be afraid if his mother was there.

It’s Deirdre’s role in all this I can’t get over. How could she have helped her son to abduct these women, turned a blind eye as he drugged and raped them? I’ll never understand it.

‘Flora’s too ill to face charges,’ says Margot. ‘Temporary insanity would be her plea, though I’m sure if it ever … if it ever came to her being fit enough to stand trial, although that’s not likely …’