It’s minutes before the door opens the tiniest crack and an eye appears through said crack. A wobbly voice says, ‘I have a gun.’

‘Yeah, you said.’

‘Why are you here?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘You’ve come to kill me.’

‘If I wanted to kill you, I’d have killed you by now.’

‘So why are you here?’

‘I want to know why you killed me. Or why you said you killed me.’

It takes an age, maybe seven minutes, but she does eventually open the door fully – a small handgun, pointed straight at me. Still crying, still unable to control her breathing or her shaking hands.

I pick up my crap hand with my good one and wave at her with it. She stares at it, like everyone does. And there we are, a Mexican standoff, her inside her bedroom door, me out on the landing. ‘I’m going to stand here until you talk to me or kill me again. Your choice.’

‘I will shoot you if you come closer.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’

She has on a typical Soccer Mom outfit – pink hoody, boyfriend jeans, brand-new Converse and her hair is longer. It used to be all sharp bob and angles but since she’s had kids it’s gone to shit – somewhere between the Rachel cut and Tarzan.

The distant peal of sirens alerts us to life outside these walls again.

‘You better see to that. I’ll wait up here.’

I take a seat on the little baseball glove chair in what I presume is my nephew Ashton’s bedroom, even though I’ve never met him. She points the gun at me all the way down the stairs until I can’t see her anymore. I overhear the convo. But for once in her life, amazingly, she doesn’t rat me out.

‘Uh yeah, it was that trophy-hunter pair who were here last week. Same ones. They got in through the living room window and they stole a… candle, a Yankee Candle, and… some holiday cards. And then they left.’

‘Just left?’ A man’s voice. The front door closes.

‘Yeah, I’m so sorry to waste your time. I guess I’m still a little jumpy after you know… everything.’

I sneak into Mabli’s room – see her desk where she films her vlogs, her Stranger Things fairy lights on the wall behind her bed, her shelves full of toy animals and trophies she’s won for spelling bees and writing competitions.

‘Ma’am, you still seem a little scared, would you like me to check around the place for you? Make sure everything’s secure?’

‘No, I saw them drive off, they’re long gone. It was a different car to last time only I didn’t catch the plates, I’m sorry. I’m fine, honestly. A little shaken up but—’ She did the nervous laugh I knew well from our phone calls.