I press my face to the mottled glass door. Although adapted for Grace’s wheelchair, the layout of their bungalow is exactly the same as Mum’s and probably very similar to the other one hundred and something houses and bungalows on the Summervale Estate. I can’t see much; the glass makes everything look like it’s underwater. My hand finds the door handle, squeezes. The inside air greets me first. It’s warm, fuggy with Meg’s air fresheners with names like Summer Daze that make my nose itch. I know because my mum buys the same ones.

“Hello?” I call into the thick silence of their house.

“Meg? Grace? It’s Cara. I’ve got those clothes . . .” I stop as I turn into the sitting room. Everything is pristine as always. The beige three-piece suite is plump, the armchairs facing the sofa as though holding their own tea party. Polished photos of Meg and Grace, framed in hearts and stars, shine from the mantelpiece. But behind the sofa, my eye catches. Something is out of place, something is there that shouldn’t be.

“Grace?” I move slowly, but fear comes quickly. Grace’s wheelchair has fallen on its side. Her little toy rabbit and the heart-shaped cushion she sits on have skidded across the linoleum, towards the kitchen. The sight jolts me into action, and I rush around the sofa, imagining Grace’s tiny body bruised and broken, her glasses smashed. But there’s nothing, or almost nothing. On the floor lies Grace’s diary, the same one I noticed wedged between her hip and her chair the last time I saw her, just a month ago.

Unless she’s in bed, I’ve never seen Grace out of her chair. She’s been in a wheelchair for as long as I’ve known her, over half her life. I pick up the diary. Down the hall, behind Meg’s bedroom door, a clock chimes the half hour. A tap drip-drips. The noise shifts the air, helps me find my voice, and I call out again.

“Guys? Meg?”

I safely stow the diary in the bag of clothes and leave it in the hall. I’ll give the diary back to Grace when I see her.

I make my way slowly down the corridor. With each step I take, fear tugs at my stomach, makes me alert. Somewhere a fly whines, blood rushes in my ears, the tap drip-drips. The door to the toilet opens suddenly and I cry out, my body jolting with shock, but it’s just Cookie, Grace’s ginger cat. Cookie ignores me and pads across the corridor, mewing as she slips gracefully into Meg’s room. I follow. Now there’s a new noise, a hum, like static. I tell myself, desperately, that it might be the radio. Maybe that’s why Meg and Grace can’t hear me?

But as I get closer, I know the humming sound isn’t mechanical. It’s deeper, weirder . . . organic. The back of my hand strokes the smooth, cool wall. The smell of cheap vanilla, so sweet it’s almost putrid, blooms inside me like mold.