The only good part of it all was that I was totally under the radar. The cops weren’t going to connect me with the torching, because they had no reason to. The only ones who knew were my ma, BJ, and the bosses who obvs weren’t going to talk. Oh, and I guess Monty, the mate in prison who I’d consulted about how to pull it off, he must have had an inkling it might be me, given it happened on my manor. Also, I reckon Smithy, who I’d borrowed the van from might have wondered. If he did, or if Monty did, they never said, and I wasn’t worried, because those of us who grew up on the estate never snitch on each other. They didn’t even speak up when a couple of kids we knew were hauled in to line up for an ID parade. Whether these kids were actually under suspicion I’ve got no idea, I just know they were on the radar for previous lightings, or spots of urban renewal as they termed it. At the end of the beauty pageant they walked, so no one got locked up that day for something they didn’t do.

I don’t suppose you’re much interested in any of this though, are you? While it was all going on you were still having surgeries until you were transferred to the local infirmary for ongoing treatment. Apparently this meant your condition was no longer critical, but you were still a long way from being able to go home.

I knew most of this thanks to Richie something-or-other, who kept on posting stuff on the Gazette website. He just couldn’t let it go, giving everyone constant updates on how you were doing, making a regular celebrity of you, and don’t think I didn’t understand what he was up to. He’d got it into his head that the job had been carried out by someone local, and so he was having a go at citizens’ consciences, trying to make someone come forward with any information they might have about the scumbag (my word, not his) who’d done this to you. He kept on and on and I read it all, couldn’t seem to stay away from it. I got a bit of a shock one day when he reported that someone called Miles Montgomery had been asking around about your daughter, Claudia, just before the fire. Apparently the cops were keen to know if anyone had heard of this bloke, or had been approached by him. I didn’t have a clue who he was myself, but what it told me was that there was someone else who might know I’d been chosen for the deed, and that didn’t make me feel very good.