The next morning started in silence. Valkyrie woke up early, nightmares driving her from slumber, but got up late, almost midday. She pulled on her dressing gown over a pair of light shorts and a T-shirt. She stood in her room and listened to her parents downstairs. She didn’t even know what day it was. Was it the weekend? Was it a Sunday? She didn’t want to go down. She didn’t want to find out that her parents hadn’t spoken to each other all night. Her folks never argued. There was never tension in the air.

She left her room. The door to Alice’s room was open, and Alice lay napping in her cot. Valkyrie couldn’t help it. She looked at her sister and smiled. Her baby sister always made her smile.

She went downstairs. Someone knocked on the door, and she went to answer it, tightening the sash round her waist as she did so. Her bare feet settled into the bristles of the welcome mat and her hand went to the latch, twisted it to the right. She pulled the door open, smiling politely in gentle anticipation. The smile didn’t leave her face, even as she saw Dai Maybury standing there.

It left her face when he hit her, though. As she stumbled back, blood spouting from her nose, sudden tears in her eyes, her mouth was opening to, what? Curse? Cry out? Threaten? She’d never know, because he was already in the hall with her and he grabbed her and hurled her into the living-room door. It burst open under the impact and she sprawled over the armchair. She heard her mother’s cry of alarm, and a rush of feet, and she raised her head in time to see Dai’s hand collide with her mother’s jaw. Her mum collapsed.

Valkyrie shoved the armchair out of her way and dived at Dai. He batted down her arms, keeping her fingers from his eyes, and she followed up with a headbutt that she realised, too late, he was expecting. His elbow cracked into her cheek and lights flashed behind her eyes, and he pivoted out of the way and let her own momentum take her into the wall. Her shoulder dislodged some family photographs. One of them, in a heavy frame, fell right on her foot. She didn’t notice.

Her father came running in, charging straight at Dai, who watched him come and moved only at the last moment, hip-throwing Desmond Edgley to the carpet. Dai leaned over, hit him three times, and Valkyrie’s dad stayed down.

The room spun and Valkyrie lurched upright. She went to run at Dai, but her knees bent without warning and she stumbled sideways, falling on to the coffee table. Dai walked by her. She watched him go, her eyes unfocused. He went upstairs.