The email link to the house down the road that Finn and Debbie went to look around today remains unopened on my iPad. He tells me that while it’s a world away from the house from hell we own or our preferred style of property, we won’t have to do anything to it before we move in. When I told him I was happy to go along with whatever he thought best, I sensed it wasn’t the right thing to say.

‘It’s not just my decision though is it, Mia?’ Finn sighed. ‘This is for all three of us. You could at least pretend you’re interested.’

‘I’m sorry.’ My eyes filled, and he retreated to the lounge. I feel so guilty for making Finn sleep on the sofa bed in there. To make matters worse, I’ve asked him to take Sonny with him tonight. I’ve barely seen my child all day, as he’s been with Debbie again, and now I’m palming him off on his dad. But I’m feeling particularly fragile today.

I’m so grateful for Debbie’s help though. She doesn’t think to question me when I ask if she can have Sonny, she just has an instinct for when it all gets too much for me. And in those moments, she’ll come in with cups of tea or coffee or food to make sure I’m okay.

I know I’m a bad wife and mother for pushing a good husband and child away. But I can’t help it. Finn wants the woman he married to return but I don’t know how to be her

again. I’m better on my own, away from him and away from his baby. Here, alone in my room, I can’t hurt anyone.

I don’t just fear my own behaviour though: I’m equally as frightened of strangers on the rare excursions I’m outdoors with Sonny. I don’t trust anyone who shows an interest in him. I haven’t put any photos of him on social media because I don’t want him to be the focus of anyone’s attention, even for a second. Seven children were stolen from their parents and killed in our house, and something similar could happen to Sonny if I’m not careful.

Thinking about those poor babies preoccupies much of my night-times. I spend hours trawling the internet when I can’t sleep, searching for all the information I can find about them. The police have only released one name so far, a little boy called Nicky Roberts who vanished in 1979 from Northamptonshire. The media has gone to town with its coverage, tracking down his parents, extended family and former school friends from forty years ago. I wonder if it was his body I saw. In an online cloud folder I’ve titled ‘PR Images’, I have a secret file dedicated to him. It contains school portraits and photos from holidays and birthday parties. My heart breaks for all he left behind and could have done with his life.

Finn knows nothing about this folder or the e-books I download about serial murderers. By reading biographies about child killers Fred and Rosemary West, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, I hope to understand more about what motivated the killer of the children found in our house. So far, all they have done is petrify me regarding what people are capable of.

Sometimes I’ll distract myself from all the doom and gloom by scrolling through my iPad catching up on my social media, envying my old friends in London living their best, carefree, filtered lives on Instagram. I’ve ignored almost all of their concerned messages and removed myself from

WhatsApp group chats. I can’t face interacting with any of them at the moment. I want everyone to forget about me.

I return to my bookmarked pages, all stories related to the murders, just as a Google alert bell chimes. I click on the link – a second child has been identified. Frankie Holmes was seven when he vanished in 1977 from his home in Berkhamsted, about thirty miles away from here. There’s a quote from his sister Lorna and a photograph. I hesitate, and then take a second, more careful look at her picture.

I know her!

Or at least I knew her for a while. It’s been years since we shared some of the same university lectures, and if I remember correctly, she dropped out of uni after only the third term.

I catch up on the last few weeks of her life on Facebook, as her settings are public. Going by the number of posts she’s written recently about her missing brother, she has been waiting for today to come. Her most recent post is a photo of a grinning little boy with a shock of red hair and a broken heart emoji as its caption. I have no recollection of her ever mentioning anything about a missing brother when we were friends. But then why would she?

An idea appears from nowhere, but before I act on it, I weigh up the pros and cons. In the end, I can’t help thinking that in helping her, might she be able to help me?