We were walking to our cars at the end of a very long day. After my tense exchange with Sergeant Ries, I’d called Dad, whose reaction to my warning about the police made me worry about his blood pressure. Then, after lunch, Chloe had been sick all over my second-best work blouse, forcing me to change into the spare T-shirt I kept in my desk drawer. Then Caleb had wet himself, and I’d started getting a headache, and at our after-school staff meeting I’d been peppered with questions about Joyce and Krystal.

‘I don’t know his number, but it’ll be easy enough to find,’ Deb added, unlocking her car door. ‘What’s happening to you is outrageous. Someone needs to put a stop to it—and Hamish might be the guy. My friend Danielle swears by him.’

I thanked her. Then I climbed into my own car and drove home, feeling as if I’d been through a wringer. I had loads of work to do, I had a lawyer to call, and I had to check up on Dad in case the police had been hassling him. I also had to water my pot plants; as I pulled into my driveway, I noticed that some of them were looking a little crisp around the edges.

But when I turned on the garden tap, my hose exploded.

It didn’t happen instantly. At first I wondered why nothing was coming out of the nozzle. Then I heard a hiss and turned around and saw the hose connector jump off the tap. Water sprayed everywhere, soaking my face, pants, hair, shoes, T-shirt.

After fiddling around for a while, I realised there was a blockage.

‘Shit.’ I couldn’t clear it no matter how hard I tried; the only solution would be to cut the hose and discard one end. But I decided to do that later, because it was already past four and I wanted to ring Hamish Staines before his office shut.

Unlocking the front door, I wondered if the Rooneys had wedged something into my hose. I tried to remember when I’d last used it. Sunday? Friday? Before or after the washing-machine incident? I was stepping into the kitchen when my feet slid out from under me.

I managed to grab the doorjamb just in time, landing on my butt instead of my back. But as I stood up again, I stepped in something sticky. There was honey all over the floor. I could smell it.

‘What the…?’ A lidless jar lay nearby. Someone had dumped out its contents. Someone had been in my house.

Suddenly I was on full alert. My heart began to pound like a jackhammer. I rose carefully and checked the back door. But it was locked—and the window wasn’t smashed.