Your auntie Bridge and I are drinking coffee in the kitchen and going over events endlessly. It is late morning, almost midday. You are on the sofa in the living room, watching Netflix in your onesie. You are calm; you seem OK. Soon, your auntie is going to walk to Twickenham Police Station for her taped interview – that is if the police don’t come and arrest her first. She’s not hungry, but she wants to have one last coffee, in her special cup, with one of her favourite brown sugar cubes. She and I both know that once she leaves this house, she will not come back, possibly for a long time.

‘You’ll get self-defence,’ I say for perhaps the twentieth time. ‘Especially if you volunteer yourself. You can show them your fork wound.’

‘It was a three-pronged attack, Officer.’ Bridget sips her coffee. ‘Death by cutlery.’ She glances at me, sees that I’m not laughing. ‘It’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I might get a suspended sentence. At least my record is clean.’ She levels her gaze at me and raises her eyebrows.

‘Not like some we could name,’ I say. I am trying to join in, to save us both, but tears are coming from nowhere and all I can do is smile through them and hold her hand.

‘What will you tell Rosie?’

The doorbell goes.

Your auntie Bridget jumps out of her chair and throws open the kitchen door. There’s a clear view of the front door from there, as you know, and she must see the black uniforms through the glass.

‘It’s the police,’ she says, and pulls at the hem of her T-shirt. ‘This is it then.’

‘Don’t answer it,’ I say.

‘I have to.’

We are both crying. She walks towards me and takes me in her arms.

‘I can’t do this without you,’ I say. ‘I can’t, Bridge.’

‘You can.’ Her words are muffled against my shoulder. ‘You’re going to be fine, sis. You can do it because you are amazing, yeah? It’s in the genes.’

She lets go, and without looking at me leaves the kitchen.

‘No,’ I call after her, but I can’t say any more. I am useless, helpless, yet again. I push my face into the cradle of my arms and weep.

The sound of the door opening. The sound of voices, serious tones. Serious, I think, but no one is reading your auntie Bridget her rights. I think I would recognise their rhythm, even if I couldn’t hear the words.

A moment later, two uniformed police, a man and a woman, fill the kitchen doorway: an alarming sight, all black, white and glints of metal. No handcuffs. And thinking about it, I didn’t hear a siren in the street.

‘Good morning,’ I manage to say. ‘Can I make you both a cup of coffee?’

The woman, ridiculously young looking, with startling blue eyes and long brown hair, takes off her hat and smiles. ‘That would be lovely, actually, thank you.’

‘Please sit down,’ I say and move over to the kettle.

I prepare coffee, listening intently.

‘This is Police Constable Bell,’ the woman says, ‘and I’m PC Loving, but you can call me Louise.’

‘Robin,’ the man says.

‘Call me Toni,’ I say, joining in. There’s a pain behind my eyes, but I ignore it. ‘Everyone calls me Toni,’ I rattle on in my confusion. ‘My parents wanted a boy, but there you are, things don’t always go to plan, do they?’

I need to get a grip, stop talking. And then you, my darling Rosie, you appear at the kitchen door and my heart tightens. This is it, my love, I almost say. There’s no protecting you from the truth now.

‘What’s going on?’ you say.

I introduce you to the police; try to ignore the shock on your face.

‘I thought you were going to the station,’ you say.

‘We just need to have a talk, love,’ I say, ‘after what happened.’

‘Will I have to talk?’ you ask.

‘We’ll need to take statements from all of you,’ says the female officer. Louise. ‘But we’re just here for a chat at the moment.’

A chat?

‘You go back to your film, honey,’ I say. ‘We’ll give you a shout if we need you, all right?’

You nod and pad back to the living room. You still look tired, I think. Droopy, that’s the word.

When you’ve gone, the police ask how you’re bearing up.

‘She’s doing great,’ I tell them. ‘She’s tired, a bit fuzzy, you know? She can’t remember much.’

Then they ask me and Auntie Bridge if we’re all right. They tell us about victim support and counselling services. They have leaflets. My stomach is in knots. The pain behind my eyes throbs. When are they going to arrest Bridget?

I put the coffee pot on the table. Your auntie Bridge has already put out cups, milk, sugar and the biscuit tin. It is all so bloody polite.

‘So,’ PC Loving says, when we are all settled at the table. ‘Last night my colleagues attempted to interview Emily Wood, but her solicitor prevented it on the grounds of exhaustion. So we had to wait till this morning to interview her, and I can tell you that she has now confessed to the abduction of your daughter and the abduction and murder of a further two girls in the west London area.’

Across the table I meet your auntie Bridge’s eye. Her gaze is steady, her mouth set in a flat line.

‘There’s something I need to—’ she says.

‘If I could just finish,’ the female officer says, throwing Bridge an apologetic smile. ‘Ms Wood also confessed to the murder of her brother, Owen Wood, using the family shotgun stored at his property at 29 Parkview Close…’

She is still talking, but I hardly hear her. The last thing I see before my eyes fill is your auntie Bridget’s face. Her eyes are round, and she clamps a hand over her mouth. On her ring finger, her silver skull looks as shocked as she does.

‘Apparently he was out cold when she found him.’ Here PC Loving glances at your auntie Bridge. ‘Reading between the lines, he’d made her life a misery, and she took her chance.’

‘So were her fingerprints on the gun?’ Bridge can’t take the incredulity out of her voice.

‘We haven’t had that information yet, Ms Casement. She says she found the gun on the floor next to him, so it seems reasonable to assume that she picked it up and, as I say, took her chance. Clearly there was a lot more to her attack on Rosie than we first thought.’

‘She picked it up,’ Bridget repeats, as if in a trance. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t – we didn’t – we should have told the whole story…’

‘You’ve both been through a great deal,’ the policewoman is saying – this lovely, lovely woman, on whose cheek I want to plant a big kiss. ‘We’ll still need to take your statements. Ms Casement – Bridget – we’ll need to record yours because you’re an important witness, obviously, and we will need to question you about the assault on Mr Wood. So if you could come along to the station with us, we can do that as soon as you’re ready. ’

‘Will there be any charges against us?’ The question pops out before I have a chance to think.

‘There’ll be the matter of the assault on Mr Woods,’ Louise says, glancing at your auntie Bridge. ‘Ms Wood is alleging that Ms Casement—’

‘I… I threatened him with the gun,’ your auntie Bridge says.

‘We’ll get to that in due course,’ PC Loving replies.

Your auntie Bridget hunches her shoulders. She seems smaller, far away, as if her chair has receded beyond the walls of the kitchen. Her face is impassive, a reflection, I’m sure, of my own.

‘I was there,’ she says. ‘I hit him. I kicked him…’

‘We can deal with that in your statement, Ms Casement.’ It’s the other officer, the man, PC Bell, was it? He is talking now. I know I should listen, but my ears are humming and I want to fly out of that kitchen and into the living room and take you in my arms and say, it’s all right, it’s all right! Auntie Bridge isn’t going to prison! We are still a family!

But I have to keep it together.

‘No one is going to press charges,’ PC Bell is saying, ‘and there are what you might call extenuating circumstances.’ He sips his coffee.

‘So my sister won’t go to prison?’ I ask, can’t help myself.

‘I doubt that very much,’ says PC Loving, breaking a digestive biscuit in half. ‘We have a right to protect the ones we love.’