Detective Burke arrives into the house, her auburn hair tied tightly in a ponytail hanging down her back. She doesn’t stand much taller than I do but her presence once again dominates the room. Detective Dunne is accompanying her.

‘You can sit down,’ she says. Tom and I sit side by side on the sofa. My hand is resting in his, my nerves resting on the edge of a sharp drop. I have a funny feeling this woman is about to tell me something I do not want to hear.

‘So you say Cian said she had black stringy hair and big eyes.’

‘That’s right,’ I reply.

‘Is there any chance I could speak with Cian?’

Immediately I shift in the seat. ‘No, he’s in bed and I’d rather you didn’t speak to him, he’s only three. I’ll ask him anything you want me to but I’m not letting him speak to a cop. It would only scare him.’

Burke is nodding her head. ‘Okay,’ she says, opening a file in her hand and taking out a sheet of paper.

I tell her about the night I heard a noise in the back garden at two in the morning. How I went to investigate and frightened off what I thought was an intruder. The person had green eyes. Dark hair jutting out from below the collar of the hood. It could have been a woman, I couldn’t tell, it was too dark and I only saw them for a brief moment. She turns to mutter something to her colleague.

‘Do you think you could describe this person?’

I thought I just did.

‘Maybe this is the person who called to the murdered woman’s house the day she was killed. The same person who was in my garden that same night. Maybe this is who you should be looking for.’

‘Who called to the house, what’s all this?’ Tom stands up.

‘Fuck.’ I jump to my feet. ‘This could be the killer, the woman who was here at my house, looking in the window at my boys playing.’ My heart is bouncing in my chest and my teeth start to chatter; every bit of my body is shaking. Tom stands and puts his arm around me pulling me close to him. ‘Relax, Sal. It’ll be all right.’

‘How can you say that?’ I pull back out of his embrace. ‘How do you know that?’

Turning my attention to Burke, I feel my whole body weakening. ‘Could she be the killer?’

‘I’m not saying that,’ Burke says. ‘We don’t know that.’

‘Holy fuck, Tom, there was a killer at our house, look what you’ve done—’

The door swings open and Amber walks in.

‘What’s going on?’ she cries out, her face white with fear. Seeing her lips tremble, I immediately get a grip of myself.

‘Nothing, sweetie, I thought you were in your bedroom.’