‘All right,’ I sighed, hefting him on my hip. ‘Time to go home.’

I walked back up the street, the five or six houses I’d passed on my walk out. There was nobody around, no cars on the road. A ghost street. I went up the front drive of the Safrans’ house, past the burglar alarm sign and the stiff green lawn that had once been tended by José, but was now growing straggly.

When I noticed the front door was slightly ajar, a thrill of fear hit my stomach. Had I left the door open? Abby would kill me.

I hurried forward to push open the door, Carson under my other arm. Later, the police would find my fingerprints on the door, which meant nothing, of course – I lived there. Everyone else’s fingerprints, too: Abby’s and David’s, even some small smudged ones of Madison’s.

Inside the house was blessedly cool. I looked around me, checking frantically to see if we’d been burgled. Nothing seemed stolen. The TV was there on the side as usual.

‘Hello?’

I remember how my voice echoed in the marble hallway. I walked the few steps into the kitchen. Did I know something was wrong? Did hairs lift on my neck, some ancient instinct telling me to run now, get out? I don’t know. I was still holding the baby when my foot nudged against something on the floor.

Then I saw it: a bare foot, a leg, a body on the kitchen floor. It was Abby, her hair over her face. I thought at first she had collapsed, fainted – not surprising if you starve yourself all the time. I stooped, Carson on my hip.

‘Abby?’

She was lying in a red pool, spreading out over the tiles, and my first thought was, She’s going to go mad about the mess. Then I realised she was dead. A large knife beside her. Her eyes looked wide and shocked, her hands held up as if she had fought someone, her nails broken. I couldn’t take it in for a long moment, like a scene in a horror film. She was dead. Murdered. Abby was dead and I had stepped in her blood; it was all over my flip-flops.

Get the gun. The little voice in my head, quiet and calm, told me exactly what to do. I could picture it so clearly, in David’s drawer, where I’d seen it before. The drawer was supposed to be locked, but maybe I could find the key. I ran out of the kitchen, kicking off my flip-flops, which sounded like gunfire on the tiles. I could see splashes of blood on my bare feet. Carson made a noise against my chest. I wondered if he knew he’d just seen his dead mother, if that would haunt him for ever. I wouldn’t put him down, although he was heavy.