Now on screen I see Wiremu talking into the camera, he’s pointing down past the ferns that surround his deck, towards the road at the bottom of his driveway. It’s muted but I can imagine him explaining what he saw.

I release a sigh. ‘I guess it’s inevitable.’

‘It is, it never lasts long. Anyway, I’ll try not to keep you, after what you have been through. Firstly, I wanted to let you know that someone will be in touch from victims support to offer a range of assistance options, including financial support for therapy sessions but also medical, property damage etc. You don’t need to take it up but it’s there for you both should you choose to.’

‘Sure, thanks,’ I say.

‘As far as our preliminary investigations go, we’ve managed to piece everything together. We’ve found the suspect’s car, parked nearby on the road, and have confirmed that last night he left his home at Rotorua and drove to your property on the lake. We’re waiting for positive identification, and phone records, but at this stage we haven’t yet located his mobile phone.’

‘I left it at the house, it was there.’

‘There was a phone. It’s possible he had two phones, but the mobile phone registered to his name has not been recovered. We’re waiting for records from Spark to confirm whose phone that was at the house.’

‘Well, I only saw the one phone.’

‘Okay.’

‘Do you know who it is yet? Who wanted to hurt us?’

‘We believe so but I can’t share that information until we’ve confirmed it with the family.’

Daniel told me about his family, his dad and unwell mum. How much of it was true though? ‘And what about the cameras? Did you find them all?’

‘We’ve found them, yes. There were seven in the house, but we don’t know where the stream was going yet. We’ve recovered a mobile device from the property but it appears to have been remotely wiped.’

‘So you don’t know who those people were who watched it?’

‘It’s a slow-moving thing,’ the officer explains. ‘I would guess they wouldn’t want to be found. The footage might have been saved remotely. Could be something for the cybercrime team. We’re waiting on details about the phone first, then we’ll investigate those who have stayed at the property. But we’re dealing with an international company and we are requesting access to users’ personal data.’

‘Would it help if you had our login for WeStay, to see what we can see?’

‘That would probably make things move a little faster.’