Anna-Louise Stubbings has a drawing of the house she used to live in on the mantelpiece. Fraser, her little boy known as “bear”, sketched it before he was killed by a careless driver, along with his father, Stuart Bates, when he was seven years old.
She had been with them, pushing her three-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, in the pram, as they returned from a Christmas party in the winter of 2015. Unable to remember the events that followed, she was later told they were singing 500 Miles before the bang, and then the screaming.
Anna-Louise and Stuart with Fraser and Elizabeth
In her hallway, near the drawing, is a teddy bear containing a recording of Fraser’s heartbeat before he went into surgery. She plays it — the thumping sound — almost like he