It’s only a few hours later that it happens. A bang against the front door of our flat. The squeak of the letterbox opening. And a sound like an avalanche, something falling like slurry into our hallway.

I wasn’t asleep; I never seem to sleep. I’m wide awake when I hear the sounds and feel my blood turn absolutely cold. Before anything else, I go through into Charlie’s room. He’s awake as well, sitting up in bed, woken by the noise. I crouch down next to his bed and turn on the lamp, covering us with bright, white light. I stare at my son in the harsh light and he stares back at me. My fingers are raising red marks on his arms where I am gripping him so hard.

I have no idea what this is.

‘Stay here,’ I whisper. ‘Don’t move from this bed.’

I let him go and push myself back to my feet. My legs feel like paper straws under me. I stand there and listen again for any other sound, but now there is only silence.

I step out of Charlie’s room, pulling the door shut behind me. Keeping him safe or trapping him in. The hallway outside is pitch black. I listen again. Nothing. But there was something and I have to turn on the hallway light and look at what has happened. Someone was here, right outside our front door. Someone has shoved something through our letterbox in the middle of the night.

I take another two steps into the hallway, sliding my hand in an arc across the wall to find the light switch. The whole thing has such a nightmarish feel to it. My fingers catch on the switch and I feel the nausea rise in my throat as I count silently to three and flip the hall light on.

There are papers everywhere. Someone has dropped a whole stack of papers through our letterbox. Silted up under the door like that, they make me think of that mountain of post behind Sarah’s door.

From here I can hardly make them out; all I can see is that it is pages and pages of typed sheets.

Has someone come here to give me answers? Are these about Sarah, documents, notes that reveal the ultimate truth?

I unfreeze my feet from the bare floorboards. The flat is icy, but I don’t even seem to feel the cold any more as I walk forwards and crouch down. They are flipped upside down, they are scattered in a mess. I pick up one sheet, two. At first I can’t make head nor tail of them.

And then I see the logos.

And then I see my name.

‘Mummy!’ Charlie cries out for me from his bedroom, his voice muffled by the door closed between us.