‘Oh, Paula, are you sure?’ she asked. ‘It’s only been two and a bit weeks. Is it too soon? If ever a location was primed for PTSD … shit, your place …’

‘You can’t let bad memories trump the good ones,’ Paula argued.

‘Okay. I get you want to go home,’ said Anita. ‘But should I—I mean, do you want me to come and stay there with you for a few nights or something?’

But Paula could see Anita was nervous about the idea of sleeping in the Earlwood house, as if malevolence was now soaked into the walls in transmittable form. Anita had always had an anxiety problem, sometimes being gripped by quite irrational fears, so Paula understood this offer would truly cost her. It wouldn’t be right to burden her friend with more than she could handle.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Paula. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll call you if I’m not.’

On her way to the house, Paula stopped by the supermarket and bought vegies, milk, bread, fish, fruit, cheese. By stocking the fridge with fresh food, she would reclaim her home, inserting wholesome ordinary things into it.

Turning into the street, she saw the bank of flowers stacked along her front fence. Seventy, eighty, maybe a hundred bunches, forming a burial mound of vegetation and cellophane wrapping, piled against the low brick wall of Paula’s front yard. Some of the flowers were decaying, clearly put there very soon after the deaths, but others looked fresh, with intensely blue delphiniums, pink stocks and the crisp whiteness of chrysanthemums sitting on top of the half-rotten mass.

Tucked between the bouquets were envelopes, addressed to Cameron or Poppy or Stacey, many written in children’s chunky lettering. There were also two sheets of cardboard, the kind kids use for school projects, covered in messages and little drawings. One was from the primary school Cameron and Poppy had attended, the other from the preschool where Stacey had been teaching. Paula tried to imagine how the other kindy teachers would explain what had happened to Ms Durack.

She left the flower pile where it was for now and approached the front door. She had readied herself for this—walking in there again—and she tensed her abdominal muscles, like someone guarding against a gut punch. In the preceding days, she’d arranged for crime scene cleaners to go over the place and she’d bought new rugs to replace the bloodied ones the police had taken as evidence.

She walked into the living room. The cleaners had put some items back in the wrong places—the granite bird was on a side table instead of the mantelpiece—but, really, the place looked bizarrely normal.

The doors to the kids’ bedroom and Stacey’s room were shut. Paula left them shut for now. Anita and she had agreed they would sort through the stuff together at some point. No rush.