I wake suddenly, jumping back into my body as if I’ve been somewhere else. There’s a trail of drool down my cheek and my shoulders are stiff. I’d lain down on one of the sun-loungers and I must have fallen asleep. I wipe my mouth surreptitiously, hoping no one saw. I think I’m on my own – all I can hear is the drowsy hum of cicadas – and then I start. Lotte and Theo are a few feet away from me. They have their backs to me and they’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder, rigid and silent. I can almost imagine Ruby-May is in this line-up, her head level with Lotte’s collarbone, her long blonde hair in a knotted straggle that reaches to her bottom. There’s no one else here. The children are staring at something inside.

‘Hey, kids,’ I say, trying to sound cheerful and not as if I’m perturbed by their unnatural behaviour.

‘Good afternoon, Uncle Nick,’ says Theo formally.

Neither of them looks at me as I lumber over. I crouch down next to Lotte and feel a shiver, as if I’ve trodden in Ruby-May’s damp footsteps, the wet spots her pudgy toes and chubby heels would have made. Pearl is dangling from one of Lotte’s hands; the doll’s foot scrapes on the tiles. Inside, Amy is dipping a teabag in her cup and I’m just about to ask them what’s so fascinating about their mother when I realize, and something grips my heart as if a child has clenched it in their cold little fist.

Amy continues to dunk her teabag, in and out, in and out, staring at a spot a foot or so in front of her. She’s still, apart from the small, mechanical movement of her wrist. The two pale children, fixated on their whey-faced mother, with her hacked-off blonde hair and her dead eyes, standing motionless in the dark kitchen, are like a scene from The Others.

‘Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things.’

‘Yeah, she often does that,’ says Theo. ‘You know, like that robot beetle I built at school? And it got stuck in this feedback loop, and it kept going two steps forward and then two backwards? Over and over, and over and over. She’s like that.’

‘Oh,’ I say. She’s thinking about Ruby-May. I hope I didn’t say that out loud too.

‘Look,’ says Lotte, ‘there’s that man again.’

What man? And then I see him – a dark shape at the back of the sitting room, too short and muscular to be Luca, Joe or my dad. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle and my heart speeds up. Amy is in danger and she’s not even aware of it. What should I do? Go in? Call the police? Hide the kids?

‘You know, the blond one?’ says Theo. ‘We’ve seen him before.’