But there are other demons to face first. Aunt Peg’s voice fills my head, the mantra of my jumbled-up childhood. Courage and caution, Brinley Ada Booth. It’s what she told me at my mother’s funeral, a scarred shadow of the girl I was. It’s what she told me when she drove me to her flat, and on my first day at a new school, and when I struggled to make friends, and when my father and Shannon stopped writing to me and I cried myself to sleep for weeks.

It’s what she’d tell me now, standing at the garden gate of the place I used to call home.

The paintwork is the same colour, a pale blue wash. The door is black and a plastic holly wreath is tied to the brass knocker with a red ribbon. For a moment, my heart stutters, uncertain. On the first day of December, my mother used to hang an identical one. But she is earth and dust. I saw what death did to her, the waxy sheen to her skin, the open hinge of her mouth, a glimpse of tongue.

The bell’s tone follows the same rise and fall as our old bell. It is our old bell, I realize. A part of me thinks about turning back, but it’s too late because a shadow fills the glass, and I touch the notepad in my pocket to remind myself why I’m here, and the door opens.

A woman is standing there. Late fifties. Greying curly hair and an oversized checked shirt. I don’t recognize her, but it’s clear from her expression she knows who I am.

‘Malcolm,’ she says, throwing a glance behind her. She repeats it, threading his name with urgency. ‘Malcolm.’

‘My name’s Brinley Booth and I’m from the Daily—’

‘I know who you are.’ The woman glances down the hallway again, and it’s clear she’s uncomfortable, willing Malcolm to appear. One hand rests on the door, as if she’s planning to shut it in my face.

This is the part of the job I hate most. I paste on a friendly, approachable smile and plunge on with my spiel. ‘I’m writing a piece on the Hilltop House murd—’

‘Malcolm!’ She barks out the name again, and it snags on my memories, like cloth on barbed wire. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before, standing here in the bitter December cold, or during all the years that have passed, but now it’s as clear as the scar on my back.

‘You’re Maureen, aren’t you?’