A local freelance photographer who couldn’t sleep was making himself a cup of tea and idly listening to his police scanner when the initial report came in. He was the first of the news media on the scene and captured the images that shocked a generation.

Sara Carter, strands of fair hair darkened by spatter, a stunned expression in her eyes and – the heartbreaking detail that elevated this photograph into the stratosphere – a bloodstained rag doll clutched in her small hand.

Followed moments later by her traumatized older sister Shannon, dressed in too-small pyjamas, being comforted by police.

Captured in colour on a Nikon F4, those pictures – published in news outlets across the world when the judge lifted reporting restrictions after the twelve-day trial – paid for the photographer’s new house and put his sons through university. A career-defining moment.

A defining moment for them all.

But on that particular morning, when the sky was pastel blue and the sun was its beating heart, there was no hint of the darkness that would tighten its grip around the neck of the Carter family.

Dr Carter was holding a general clinic at his surgery ten minutes’ walk from their grand house in a pretty Kent village. Pamela Carter was knitting blankets for the neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital in Canterbury.

Shannon Carter, aged twelve, was still asleep.

Sara squeezed her toes and relaxed them. She was sleepy and warm beneath her duvet, despite the hollow feeling in her stomach that came from going to bed without dinner.

She screwed up her eyes, as if closing them could switch off her memory of last night. She didn’t want to sully the quiet joy of just-waking-up by replaying the confrontation with her father. He was at work now, and for a few precious hours, there was the promise of peace.

Despite the sunshine bleeding through her curtains, the spring air had bite. Sara pulled on her dressing gown and slipped across the landing to wake up her sister.

Because Shannon was the eldest, she had the biggest bedroom. Sara didn’t mind, though. Shannon’s room was always cold, the sun never reaching the back of the house.

Her sister was a hump beneath the duvet, a flash of white-blonde hair the only sign she was there at all. Giggling to herself, Sara climbed into bed beside her.

‘Get off!’ Her sister gave a shriek. ‘Your feet are freezing.’ She shoved Sara away, but she was laughing too. She rolled over so they were face to face.

Sara grinned at Shannon, whose features were still softened by sleep. Despite their differences in personality, she idolized her older sister. The winter blue of the eyes. The mole on her cheek. Hair as pale as a ghost in snow.

‘Shall we make pancakes for breakfast?’ Shannon’s breath was warm against her face. ‘With banana and chocolate spread—’