Marietta was fired several weeks before the murders, as far as I recall. José and David had the row maybe ten days before. I remember being frantic, struggling to get the kids up and to school, feed them. Abby was rarely around. David was awake at all hours, and I’d meet him in the kitchen as I warmed Carson’s bottle or put Madison’s sheets on to wash yet again. His brief period of helpfulness had waned, and I was back to doing it all myself.

One night – I think it was the Friday, perhaps, and the murders happened on the following Monday – he came in as I stood at the stove boiling water, a crying Carson on my hip. I was utterly exhausted, too young for all this responsibility. It was around two in the morning, outside a pitch-black LA night, the howls of coyotes in the canyon, the whir of police helicopters overhead. Carson was barely awake, struggling against his drowsiness – not natural, as I now know – and the pain in his teething gums. His little face was red and shiny.

David padded in, bleary-eyed, a whisky glass in his hand. He was wearing the same jeans and T-shirt I’d seen him in two days before, and I wondered if he’d changed or showered. He didn’t seem to have gone to work in days. ‘Why’s the baby up?’

I said nothing. Increasingly, I just went through the motions of my routine.

David winced as the baby’s wails went up a notch. ‘I thought he was sleeping right through now.’

‘He was. I think he’s teething.’ Which was all I needed.

You have to get out of here, said a voice in my head, one that I should have listened to.

‘There’s always something, isn’t there?’ he said. ‘With kids.’

I just looked at him. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why he and Abby had had kids when they didn’t seem to want them.

‘Here.’ He held out his arms, and I gratefully surrendered the heavy, howling baby to him, as I busied myself with the bottle. David spoke to Carson. ‘What’s wrong with you? God, does he ever shut up?’

That jolted me. ‘He’s just in pain.’ Carson was actually quite a good baby, as far as I could see.

‘I mean, you’re doing your best,’ he continued over the din, jiggling Carson hard against him. ‘But it’s a lot, isn’t it? For someone your age. Two kids, not even yours.’

‘I love them,’ I said, and mostly meant it. ‘Look, I’ll take him back.’ I eased Carson on to my hip, feeling some strange relief to have him in my arms. David hardly seemed to notice I’d taken him.

‘But it’s not what you’d want, ideally. A young girl like you.’