Coffee in hand and pyjamas still on, Lana sat at the small desk on the landing, ignoring the view of north London and staring instead at the laptop screen in front of her. She completed the day’s trending Facebook quiz – What kind of coffee are you? – and then sat back, hugging her mug in both hands and waiting for the results to load. The screen was too bright and the curser pulsed to the beat of her aching temples. A more patient person would find the control settings and adjust the contrast, but Lana simply yanked out the power cord, sending the laptop into power-save mode and making the screen three shades darker.

The result was in: You are a double espresso – too hot and strong for most to handle. Lana liked the sound of that. Her daughter used phrases that were far less complimentary, with words like irresponsible, crazy, a mess. Jane would judge her for the wine bottle in the kitchen bin and the vodka at her bedside. At Jane’s age Lana had been a promiscuous drug-user with at least three arrests for petty crime under her belt, so, compared with what Lana had put her own mother through, a judgemental, boring daughter was no big deal. A bit disappointing, but no big deal.

Lana shared the quiz result with her Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Marj had posted a quote about good things happening to good people. Seventeen others had liked it. Lana typed a swift response – Tell that to the 39 people killed in the Istanbul nightclub shooting – and pressed Enter. People could be such dim, optimistic idiots.

There was a knock on the door. Lana padded downstairs with bare feet, wondering what type of person ignores a perfectly working doorbell to ram their meaty fist against a block of wood. Instant coffee served with a truckload of milk and two sugars, she concluded as she opened the door. There was nobody there. Lana checked for a delivery card or parcel left on the doorstep and found neither.

‘Stupid kids,’ she muttered under her breath as she went to boil the kettle again.

In the kitchen, she spooned ground coffee into the cafetière, filled it with water and then rinsed her mug in the sink. In the garden a large blackbird strained to pull its wriggling breakfast out of the ground. For a moment it looked as if the worm might have the upper hand, but then the bird replanted its feet a couple of times in a kind of avian death dance and, ping, out the worm sprang. Lana turned to fetch milk from the fridge – and there it was.