Page 49 of The Tapes

But there’s a worry that everything this town has been built upon is in danger of being replaced by the notoriety that comes from nine unsolved killings.

Nine women who should still be a part of this community have been taken, and nobody appears to have answers.

Its people are living through an ongoing trauma that has festered through generations.

It is exactly seven o’clock on a Tuesday evening when the bells of St Mark’s Church chime. There’s a six-minute chorus, as there is every week. Afterwards, community outreach officer Janice McNally joins me on a bench at the front of the church.

She looks up to the church and it’s as if the sound of the bells still hang on the breeze. ‘I started ringing when I was only nine,’ she says. ‘Dad had been doing it his whole life – and he picked it up off his mum. It’s a family thing.’

There’s a hint of a smile as we look out to the wash of green beyond the church walls that stretches to infinity.

‘This church was built almost a thousand years ago,’ Janice says.

‘There’s a floor panel inside with the date.

We have a stone mason come in every year or two to clean and maintain it.

The stained-glass windows came around a century later, and we have a specialist who looks after those, too.

There have been problems with the roof and the stairs.

We’ve been working with a charity to help with accessibility issues.

It’s this monolith that’s been here a thousand years, and could be here for another thousand. ’

Janice speaks passionately, drumming her fist gently into her thigh as she speaks.

‘That’s how I think about this town,’ she adds.

‘It’s easy to feel disheartened – but Sedingham isn’t one person.

It’s not this monster looming over us. It’s the community and the people who live here.

When we had the march in town, it came from a place of anger.

This burning, furious rage at what had been done to us.

But there was beauty there, too. Solidarity with hundreds of women, saying we were going to stand up for ourselves and each other. ’

I tell her it’s inspiring to hear such things, given what the town has been through.

‘I don’t think we have another choice. I’m obviously not saying there’s a positive to this but I do believe it should make people appreciate others in their lives.

How much we should be looking out for them.

I think there will be a time we all need to stand up and say we’re not going to accept this any longer.

This person has taken so much – but that doesn’t mean we’re defined by this evil.

I firmly believe that, one day, you, I, or someone in our town will have a moment to stand up and say we’ve had enough. ’