It’s hard to get an accurate timeline from a three-year-old but he said he knows I was upstairs because when he called out to me to tell me she was there, I didn’t hear him. It must have been when I was changing the bed sheets at around three this afternoon. My heart sinks, my kids were in danger while I was worrying about matching pillow cases.

‘Did you ever see her anywhere else?’ Tom says, pushing Cian’s toy train across the kitchen table. Cian is building a track for him with the cutlery. ‘No.’

Tom looks up to where I’m standing by the sink. Amber is watching both of us, wondering what’s going to happen now.

‘The train is running out of fuel, Cian, we need to get it to a station.’ Tom pushes the train between the knives and forks as Cian moves the gravy boat to the end of the track.

‘I’m not sure there’s any fuel left in that, maybe we’ll go into the playroom to the real station.’

Tom is doing good. Managing to keep Cian distracted while he extracts the information from him. Sliding off the chair, Cian runs towards the playroom, Aaron runs after him. Tom takes a deep breath. His eyes look worried when he nods at me. Even Amber gets involved following us into the room.

With the train full of fuel, Tom asks Cian where he saw the woman and Cian jumps to his feet and walks over to the window.

‘There,’ he says, pointing to the corner of the window.

‘Can you remember what she was wearing, Cian?’

Gliding back into position on the floor, Cian holds the train on the track, pausing for a moment to think before saying, ‘No.’

Aaron is playing alongside Cian, saying nothing, then suddenly he opens his mouth. ‘Jesus,’ he says.

Tom and I look at him, Amber giggles. Cian is still focused on the train’s journey.

I’m about to correct Aaron, tell him he can’t take the Lord’s name in vain when I realize it would create friction in the room and undo Tom’s work. He probably heard it from me anyway. I let it go.

‘It’s okay, Aaron.’ Tom turns his attention to Aaron tossing his hair before pulling him in close to his body to hug him. Amber stands nervously at my side. I know she’s nervous because she’s not giving her opinion.

‘Did you see the woman, Aaron?’

‘Jesus.’

Amber giggles louder this time lifting her hand to cover her mouth.

‘Well, I guess we better get these people home,’ Tom says, leaning in to move one of the trains.

We put the boys to bed before Tom rings the police. It could be nothing but at the same time it could be something.