I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and I’ve decided that I’m going to sue somebody for how Delaney House got raided, because it was absolutely shocking, just completely outrageous, what the police did to us. I don’t know how much you know about it since you said in one of your letters that you weren’t there, but what happened was I was walking past the front door on my way into the kitchen and next thing I knew, the door came flying in. I mean that literally – the door flew right off the hinges. Why the police thought they needed a battering ram to bring it down, I cannot tell you. The door was a hundred years old, Jack – it would have come down with a good shove. But it was like you see in the movies. Cops with a battering ram in full riot gear, boots, vests, the lot. Talk about an over-reaction!

I mean, for goodness sake, I’m . . . what . . . all of five foot tall, and I was standing in the kitchen with a cup of tea in my hand, so it wasn’t like I was a threatening presence. Mark was sitting in his old armchair, with the laptop in front of him, probably on the punt. Couldn’t they just have knocked? Of course they couldn’t because they wanted the scene to be dramatic. They wanted the spectacle, the media circus. I put my tea down on the kitchen bench. I said, ‘Excuse me, but what on earth’s going on?’

A detective stepped forward. I assume he was a detective since he was one of the few not dressed in a black bodysuit like he was on the hunt for Osama bin Laden. He wore civilian clothes but he flashed his badge at me, so he was definitely a cop. He also used my full name, which is something only a cop might do. He said, ‘Are you Sally Narelle Delaney?’

I said, ‘I am.’

He said, ‘I have a warrant. We’re authorised to search these premises. Where are the children?’

Mark said, ‘Don’t say anything, Snow.’ And then, like an idiot – I mean, God love him, but what an idiot – he made for the back door. Of course they ran after him, and of course they caught him. Before he’d taken even three steps they had him on his knees, hands cuffed behind his back, telling him, shut up, shut up, don’t say anything. I was saying, ‘Get off him, he’s done nothing wrong!’ But again, they just weren’t listening.

The detective said, ‘Where are the children, Ms Delaney?’

I said, ‘They’re in their room, of course.’

The detective said, ‘Which room?’ And I said, ‘In their room off the end of the hall, and if everyone would calm down I’d be quite happy to show it to you.’

That seemed to surprise him. Really, the detective was quite stunned by that. He motioned to his SWAT team to set off down the hall. Like maybe I was going to hide the fact that I had children in the house. Why would I hide it? They were there perfectly legitimately. But then when the SWAT team started off down the hall I saw the women – women who looked suspiciously like they were from the welfare department.