The first words I heard through the sobs on the end of the phone last Saturday morning were: ‘Please don’t hang up.’

The call woke me up at 7.30. It was my friend Jude Richmond, the florist whose body was found with her nine-year-old daughter Millie in the lake outside their Gloucestershire house last week.

Jude had a vast network of contacts thanks to her business, Camelia Flowers, having spent a decade in London before opening a shop in South Cerney, near Cirencester.

To view the full story please visit the Mail on Sunday.

Originally published at the Mail on Sunday on the 24th of March, 2009.