Granny Ng and the young man were each interviewed for half an hour. The young man told Officer Tang that for the past few months, he’d begun to notice that food was going missing. He also noticed that household supplies like soap and toilet paper were getting used up a lot more quickly than usual. At first he’d thought little of it, putting it down to his own absentmindedness; perhaps Mrs. Lee the cleaner had left him a note about it and he’d forgotten. After all, he would also lose track of other things: he’d forget where he’d put a flashlight or an extension cable, for example, and then after a few weeks the items would just turn up on their own. But after some time, a vague, nagging doubt began to visit him just before falling asleep at night. The following morning, before leaving for work, he would quickly check around the house for signs of disturbance. He never found any.

Again he tried to put his uneasiness down to paranoia, reasoning that he’d probably been working too hard and spending too much time alone. But once in a while he would check the rooms, the cupboards, the closets. Though he never found anything, that nagging sense of doubt continued to visit him at night. During the weekends, at certain times of the day, he would get the feeling that he was not alone. The surveillance system had been expensive, but it gave him some peace of mind. He said he only wished he’d thought of it sooner.

By the time the officers had finished their interrogation, the young man had learned some more details about the old woman: that she was homeless and had broken into his home the previous winter, set up a sleeping space for herself in the spare closet, and managed to live there undetected for a year. He found this difficult to accept, as he was sure he’d checked that closet, but then admitted that yes, perhaps in his haste he hadn’t bothered to push the hanging clothes aside to check behind the plastic storage boxes. He also learned that she’d spent her days cooking, cleaning, doing chores around the house, and getting electrical items repaired for him. His cleaner had not, as he’d believed, had a surge of conscientiousness.

After coming home from the police station, he opened up the closet and, overcoming feelings of queasiness, gathered the old woman’s things into a garbage bag. There wasn’t much there—a sleeping bag, some clothes, two empty water bottles, a thin stack of letters addressed to her son, and some drawings and Post-it notes lining the walls.