In her hands she held onto one of her father’s jumpers. It still smelt of his cologne. She’d removed it from the laundry basket after her mother had fallen asleep. Marie had not slept a wink. She sat up the whole night crying. She had decided against taking the sleeping pills she’d plied her mother with. She couldn’t handle both their pain at once. She needed time to process some of her own before she dealt with anyone else’s grief.

For hours she’d tried hard to remember anything about Dennis Wade. She knew she’d never met him, but she wondered if there was some other detail she had that would help the police catch the animal responsible for her dad’s murder.

Marie had a sudden urge to leave. She wanted to get away from the house she’d grown up in and return to London. Maybe there her reality would be different. Maybe there she could avoid thinking about his death. But Marie knew she had to stay. Her mother needed her. They needed each other. She couldn’t escape this, no matter how far she went it would always be there.

Last night, after the police had left, Susan had retrieved the vacuum cleaner from the cupboard under the stairs and had proceeded to vacuum the living room, complaining about the number of needles the Christmas tree had dropped on the carpet. Marie couldn’t see any needles but didn’t try to stop her mother. The FLO had explained that it was common for people to start cleaning moments after receiving terrible news of that magnitude. It was people’s way of controlling their surroundings when they felt otherwise helpless. Marie understood it made vague sense, but she’d been unable to sit there and watch her mother vacuum and had taken herself into the bathroom to run a hot shower, hoping the noise of the water would drown out her loud guttural cries.

Folding her father’s jumper neatly and setting it down to one side, Marie stood up and moved over to the Christmas tree. On the top was a fairy that her mother had used every year for as long as she could remember. Marie cradled a small glass decoration that hung from one of the branches, remembering happy times in her childhood and Christmases spent with her father. Every year he’d dressed up as Father Christmas and volunteered at the school fair.