The sky is grey with the promise of rain as we walk along the short stretch of pavement to my house, but the bluebells nod in the wind, their vibrant colouring a respite from the blood-drenched scene that plays in my memory in a never-ending loop. A swallow darts towards the river, riding low on the wing. The world has changed, but it looks the same.

The police lady wants to take a more detailed statement, but she escorts me next door to find my father because I ask her to, and because I want to see my mother.

When my father – unshaven and still wearing yesterday’s T-shirt – opens the front door, he is crying.

The pain in my heart eases for a bit. He’s crying because he’s worried about me, what with my empty bed, and all the sirens and the police cars. But he barely registers the police lady, even though she is wearing a uniform and a sombre expression, or the stiffening pyjamas beneath my coat.

‘Brinley . . .’ he says. There’s a crack in his voice.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. And then my voice cracks too because his crumpled clothes and his baggy face bring home the horrors of the night, and it rushes up to me all at once, the scars these murders will leave on all of us, and the decisions I still have to make.

He shakes his head. ‘Never mind about all that.’

And I think: He doesn’t know yet.

And then he takes my hands.

And then he draws me inside.

And then he tells me my mother is dead.

I am twelve years old and I am running.

My feet pound the grass, powered by grief and fear. I do not stop until I reach the summit of Saltbox Hill, my breath coming harder and harder until I’m forced to bend and catch my breath.

The police are looking for me and so is my father, but I don’t care. About them. About him. About anything at all.

My mother – my laughing, beautiful, funny mother – is dead.

The rain has started, fat drops that are cold and surprising against my face. I want to run. I want to keep on running until my lungs are empty and my heart gives up.

Her silver chain coils in the palm of my father’s hand. ‘She wanted you to have this.’

I dry my eyes with a tissue and fasten it around my neck. ‘Did she say anything about me before she died?’

A guilty look flashes across my father’s face. He doesn’t think to rose-tint the truth, to blur the lines. He blurts it out. ‘I was asleep, love, when she passed. She was gone when I woke up.’

My mother died alone and it’s all his stupid, drunken fault.