but as the images flooded back - the police drawing up in the courtyard that first day , her candle-light vigil in the hospital , the young gendarme at her door saying he was sorry ... so sorry - a cold steel hand of reality reached deep inside her and ripped out her emotions , her very soul , stripped bare every fibre and nerve ending until her pain was rendered down to no more than pitiful numbness , a grey void ... whispers in the first empty dawn after his death ... 'oh christian ... christian ' .