I start, my heart contracting. I bunch my hands into fists. I’m painfully aware that I’m in flip-flops, there’s a fifteen-year-old girl, a couple of kids, two women and my elderly father inside – and I’m the only man who’s awake.

I swing towards the sound. It’s coming from the stand of cypresses at the far end of the property, before the land tails off into scrub. I walk slowly towards it. There’s a half-open shed with cleaning products for the pool on the other side of the trees, and I’m certain whoever it is, they’re inside. I pause, wondering whether it would be wiser to go back and wake Joe or Matt.

Or call the police.

It’s grown harsher, more guttural.

I pat my pocket. I’ve left my mobile in the house. I only have a child’s tooth with me.

It’s louder, faster, nearer. I freeze.

And then I realize what it is.

It’s a man’s breathing, his breath coming quicker now, accompanied by a rhythmic creak, and someone else is with him, another person who is breathing heavily as well. They’re having sex. Bethany has finally got what she wanted: Joe. I almost laugh out loud with relief.

As quietly as I can, I go back inside. When I was a kid and I couldn’t get to sleep, my mother would recommend hot milk with a teaspoon of honey. Occasionally she’d even make it for me, if she was having a break from her painting. I heat a cup of milk in the microwave, swirl some honey in. I notice a small pile of Dad’s things on the corner of the dining-room table: the book on politics that he’s reading, his Sudoku collection, a pen, his glasses and his journal. He must have forgotten to take them up to his room: he usually reads before he goes to sleep.

I’m not the slightest bit interested in politics, to Dad’s disappointment. I pick up his journal and flick through it. I feel a bit guilty, but I justify it to myself: I’m checking he’s okay, not forgetting any appointments. It’s tragically empty. Once he was so busy, giving lectures, attending conferences, supervising students, plus all the extracurricular activities I’m trying to avoid thinking about. There’s hardly anything here: Tea with Tony, his neighbour who makes the apple cider brandy; a dentist’s appointment; a note about mending the fence; a reminder to book an electrician. I flick further back in time, to 1 September last year. It simply says, Funeral, and the time and the church: St Margaret and All the Angels. It took two weeks before the coroner would release Ruby-May’s body.