Mum keeps talking. “You should talk to Martin from number thirty-seven, he leads all the community watch stuff round here. It was Martin who called the police when Jon went mental, smashing Meg’s windows. I was out at work, in the salon. Thank God Grace was in the hospital at the time, so neither of them were home, but it shook us all up, didn’t it, love?” Mum nods at me.

I know she wants me to agree with her, to show Upton and Brown what a terrible man Jon is, but I don’t know him so I just say, “Someone posted a photo of his little boy online when he had cancer. Apparently that’s what tipped him over the edge.” Mum stops nodding and just stares at me, so I add, “Obviously, though, he was stupid. Doing what he did next door, I mean.”

Upton nods. “So you felt a bit sorry for him?”

I feel Mum bristle next to me. “Of course not!” Upton narrows her eyes at Mum, before Mum adds, “Why are you asking about him when we all know who did this?”

Upton keeps her face impassive. “Susan, we are focused on finding Simon, like I said. But I’m asking about Jon Katrin because he’d been aggressive towards Megan and Grace in the recent past. Was there anyone else Megan or Grace ever mentioned: boyfriends, other family?”

“No, no one.”

“How about Grace—any relationships? Friends?” Upton perseveres. Mum curls a strand of hair around her index finger.

“Grace was always too sick to go to school, of course, so she was homeschooled when she was well enough. She made some friends online, though. She was always talking to other disabled kids, giving them advice, making them feel better.” Mum pauses, squeezes her eyes shut, thoughtful for a moment. “But Meg never really talked about her family. Her dad’s still alive but he’s got Alzheimer’s, lives in that big home just outside Plymouth, Resthaven I think it’s called. Meg didn’t get to visit as much as she wanted; it was hard being a full-time carer. Her mum died from breast cancer when Meg was really young, twenty-one I think, and then her brother moved to Australia a few months later. Meg always said her friends were her family.”

With a loud mewl, Cookie leaps up onto the table. Brown leans back in his chair, cups a hand over his mouth, and mumbles “Allergic” as he stands up from the table. I raise my hand towards Cookie, let her rub her cheek against my knuckles, and Mum coos in a baby voice, “Of course we hadn’t forgotten you, Cookie, you’re family too,” before she starts crying again and the meeting is over.

I let Mum tuck me into my single bed. She’s smiling faintly for the first time all day. I know she likes it when I feel like her little girl again. She places a sleeping pill next to a mug of warm milk. “Just so you know it’s there,” she says. She took her pill twenty minutes ago; her words are already slurring. She kisses me, reminds me I can come into her bed if I need to, before I am, at last, alone.