He built it the year I turned ten. I’d had two summers in it before I never saw it again, but I had climbed its wooden ladder every day. Often I would take a blanket and, if it was dark, a torch and a Tupperware box of sandwiches, and would sit in it for hours, reading books, colouring, writing in my diary.

‘It’s an accident waiting to happen,’ Bonnie had muttered more than once.

‘It’s beautiful,’ I’d cried. ‘Daddy’s made this for us.’

‘Us?’ she laughed. ‘You wouldn’t get me in that if you paid me.’

‘Danny?’ I’d turned to my brother. ‘You like it, don’t you? You’d come up there with me.’

Danny had shrugged as his eyes trailed up its makeshift ladder. He’d spent as much time in it as I had. Never with anyone but me, but often he’d go up there alone, sit on its platform, and look out. What he was looking at, I had no idea.

But now the treehouse is gone and the windowsills have been painted teal and a shiny new conservatory stands at one side. Now there is a white tent in the garden and blue-and-white police tape tied around the trees, and if I’m not careful, a detective will come over and ask me what I’m doing.

‘You okay?’ A voice behind me makes me jump and I turn, still slumped against the tree, and wipe a hand furiously across my tear-streaked cheeks. A woman about my age is staring at me oddly, an amused smirk on the edge of her lips. She pulls her dark navy parka tighter to her, one hand gripping a camera that hangs around her neck.

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I mumble.

She gestures over to the tent. ‘Horrible business, isn’t it?’

I nod, unsure how to answer, deciding that saying as little as possible is best.

‘Do you live here?’ she asks, and there’s something in the way she says it that suggests she already knows I don’t.

When I shake my head she slowly holds out a hand. ‘I’m from the Bournemouth Echo.’

‘Oh, hi.’ I shake her hand. ‘Do they know anything more about the body, then?’ I ask as casually I can.

‘Not as far as I’m aware.’ She continues to watch me carefully, her lips threatening to break into a grin. ‘You don’t look the type to have come for a nose,’ she says.

‘I’m not.’ My fingers automatically reach for the hard skin on my thumb and begin picking at it.

‘Do you mind if I get your name?’

‘Why do you want that?’

‘I’m just writing something up on general public concerns, that kind of thing. To be honest, if I go back with nothing, my boss will have me and I’m running out of things to report on.’