I sit, as directed. ‘I am pleased, Mum, of course I am. I just wasn’t expecting you. You didn’t answer the phone when I called, and you never called back, or even sent a message. I didn’t even know whether you’d listened to the voicemail.’

‘Allie, you know I am not good at keeping in touch. Neither of us are, not anymore.’

Her words sting with the ring of truth. ‘Where are you staying?’ I feel a flicker of panic, suddenly sure that she’ll say she’s staying here but I don’t see any sign of a bag.

‘Canterbury. I have work to do at the university.’

Does that mean that if she hadn’t had work here, she wouldn’t have responded to my voicemail at all? I push the thought away, trying to believe that she wants to repair our relationship, that she has missed me as much as I have missed her. ‘Right. How long are you here for?’

She shrugs, ‘I don’t know. A week or two. If you need me, I will stay longer.’

I want to tell her that I don’t need her, that I’ve managed fine without her so far, but I don’t. After all, I did leave her a voicemail begging her to help me. A scratch comes from the chimney and my mother’s eyes go to the chimney breast.

‘There is something else bothering you,’ she says, looking back at me.

‘I’m not sleeping too well,’ I confess. ‘I had a dream … or a nightmare. Some sort of vision,’ I blurt out. ‘A dream, but it was so real it felt like it happened. It really happened.’

‘I see. What was this dream?’ My mother fumbles for another cigarette and moves to the back door again. I had forgotten how much she smoked.

‘I was on some stairs, at the top, by the landing. Looking into a bedroom … the children are there, sleeping in the beds and there is a funny smell in the air. Weird shadows on the walls.’

‘But what does this have to do with anything? Surely it is just a cauchemar? A nightmare?’

‘I don’t know.’ Blood beads on the broken skin of my lower lip as I bite it. ‘I can’t see the children properly, but I know they are Mina and Leo …’ I break off, my breath tight in my chest. ‘All I know is that I am about to do something awful, terrible. And I have no way to stop it. But at the same time, it isn’t me. It’s not me that is about to do this awful thing.’