‘Is that one of your mum’s pigs?’ I said.

The girl nodded. ‘When they have their babies.’ She flipped to the page before. ‘And then the babies get bigger.’ The drawing looked like the set-up we’d seen – groups of pigs housed together in larger cages.

The girl reached and took her milk. Glugged it all down. She flicked back through more pages of her book, talking almost as if to herself. ‘We have lots of pigs here. Mummy pigs, baby pigs.’ She flicked the pages fast, and the drawings all looked similar. I wondered what her teachers must think if she drew like this at school. The drawings were creepy when all seen together. No houses, no birds, no dogs or cats or images of her family. Just pigs – lots of pigs.

And then a different drawing. Trees, shaded charcoal-dark, and amidst them, facing away from the viewer, a person. A girl drawn with white chalk, wearing a pale, old-fashioned dress, shining with a luminous brightness out of the page.

‘What’s that one?’ I pointed to the picture.

The girl looked up from the page. ‘The Pale Child,’ she said.

I sensed the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

The girl flicked through a few more pages of pigs, and then paused at a strange image, almost reminiscent of Escher. There was what looked like a lake, but in the water was a circular hole, bounded by a concrete wall so water couldn’t get into it. The internal surface of the hole was convex and lined with steps, leading down, as if you could climb into it.

‘It’s an edge you can’t see over,’ the girl said.

I looked again at the drawing. The hole sucked in your gaze, so you imagined walking down into it, except the steps got narrower as they went into the hole. If you walked down them, you’d soon be in trouble. You’d want to turn around and shuffle down backwards, but as the steps got narrower it would be impossible to go further without falling. The girl was right. You’d never be able to see into the hole.

‘That’s a brilliant drawing,’ I said.

‘It’s in the reservoir where the boy fell,’ the girl said. ‘Years ago.’

The front door pushed open and Kirsty appeared. ‘Frankie! What are you doing?’

The girl shut her sketchbook. ‘I heard a noise. I found these people in the kitchen. They gave me milk.’

‘Okay. Well, go back to bed now.’ Robust parenting.

The girl got up and trailed out of the kitchen, taking her sketchbook with her.

‘Sorry,’ Kirsty said. ‘Frankie’s not very mature for her age. She’s thirteen, but sometimes she acts like a little kid.’

‘She showed us her drawings,’ I said. ‘They’re very good.’