What I felt in that bed, listening to the price of my own murder being negotiated over the sound of my supposed sleeping, was something else.

It was cold.

It was clear.

It was almost calm.

And it was already, even then, beginning to plan.

I have thought a great deal, since, about that strange calm, because it frightened people when I described it later — the detectives, the therapist, even my brother.

They expected hysteria, and they got a woman who had, in the space of about ten seconds, stopped feeling anything at all and started building a case.

But I have come to understand it, and it is not as cold as it sounds.