I sat in the gallery on the day she was sentenced and watched a judge describe her conduct as a betrayal of the public trust, and watched her nod along politely, and I understood that she has already begun constructing the version in which she was misled by her son.

She will die believing it. That is the closest thing to justice that particular file is going to produce.

Maya testified on the twelfth day.

Vaillancourt was right and Maya was right: they led with the confession. A very good lawyer in a very good suit held up a photocopy and read her own two paragraphs back to her in a gentle, respectful voice, and then asked her, kindly, which time she had been lying.

Maya Ellis said: “Both times I said what a man in the room told me to say. The difference is that this time he isn’t in the room.”

There was a pause and then the judge said something about the exhibit, and it went on for another two hours, and it was not a triumph and nobody stood up.