Matt drives carefully, taking every corner slowly and approaching speed bumps as though I’ve broken a bone. The hospital insisted on checking me over thoroughly, in spite of my insistence that – aside from the cut on my neck, which required no stitches – Melissa hadn’t touched me.

I was placed in a bed next to Katie; treated for shock but otherwise unharmed. The ward nurse gave up on keeping us separate, eventually opening the dividing curtain so we could see each other. We’d only been there half an hour when Isaac arrived, racing through the doors without any of his usual assurance.

‘Kate! My God, are you okay? I came as quickly as I could.’ He sits on the side of her bed and takes her hands, his eyes travelling over her face, her body, looking for injuries. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘I’m fine. I’m so sorry about tonight’s show.’

‘Christ, don’t worry about that. I can’t believe what you’ve been through.’

‘But everyone’s tickets—’

‘I’ll give them a refund. Forget about the play, Kate. It’s not important. You are.’ He kisses her on the forehead, and for the first time he doesn’t look as though he’s putting on a performance. He really does like her, I realise. And she likes him.

He looks up and our eyes meet, and I wish the curtain hadn’t been pulled back after all. I can’t read his expression, and I don’t know if mine says all I want it to.

‘You’ve had quite a time of it,’ he says.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m glad it’s all over for you.’ He pauses, emphasising what comes next. ‘Hopefully you’ll be able to forget about it now. Put everything that happened in the past.’ If Katie is wondering why her boyfriend is taking such care over the way he speaks to her mother, she doesn’t comment on it. Isaac holds my gaze, as if wanting to make sure I’ve understood. I nod.

‘I hope so, too. Thank you.’

‘Nearly there,’ Matt says now. Simon, sitting next to me in the back seat of the cab, puts his arm around my shoulder, and I rest my head against him.

I told him in the hospital I had thought he was the one behind the website. I had to – the guilt was consuming me.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I say now.

‘Don’t be. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. You must have felt as though you couldn’t trust anyone.’

‘That notebook …’ I remember the scribbled notes I’d seen; the woman’s name, her clothing. How convinced I’d been that I was holding evidence of a crime.

‘Jottings for my novel,’ Simon says. ‘I was creating characters.’

I’m grateful that Simon has taken it in his stride; that he seems not the slightest bit offended to be accused of something so horrific. On the other side of Simon, Katie gazes out of the window as we near Crystal Palace; Justin is in front of her, in the passenger seat next to Matt. Isaac has gone into town to handle the disappointed theatre-goers and convince them to come and see the show tomorrow evening, when Katie is adamant she’ll be fit to go on stage.

How can everything look as though nothing has happened?

On the edge of the road, grey slush dirties the pavements and drips from the top of buildings. A sorry excuse for a snowman sits in the walled yard outside the primary school, its carrot long since lost. People are heading out for the evening, while others are still coming home from work, checking phones as they walk, oblivious to the world around them.

We drive past Melissa’s café, and I can’t stop the intake of breath; the tiny cry that escapes me. All the times I’ve joined her there after work for a cup of tea; given her a hand with the lunchtime prep. There’s a light on in the café, casting dark shadows as it falls on the unstacked tables and chairs.

‘Should you go and close up properly?’ I ask Justin. He turns to look at me.

‘I don’t want to go in there, Mum.’

I can understand that. I don’t, either. Even just being in Anerley Road is making my pulse quicken, and I feel a fresh wave of hatred for Melissa for sullying the memories of a place in which I’ve loved living. I never imagined moving again, but now I wonder if we might. A fresh start for Simon and me. Space for Justin and Katie, of course, but a new chapter for us all.

We pass the Tube station. I’m seized by the image of Katie, walking towards the entrance and looking up at the cameras; terrified, yet determined to succeed. Determined to save me.

I glance at her, wondering what she’s thinking, but her profile gives nothing away. She’s so much stronger than I gave her credit for.

‘What will happen now?’ Matt asks. It was all over by the time I called him, and he walked into the hospital to find his ex-wife and his daughter in a bizarre assortment of garments that Simon had hastily gathered from home. The police seized the clothes we’d been wearing at Melissa’s house. They’d been gentle about it, explaining that i’s had to be dotted, and t’s crossed, and that I shouldn’t worry. Everything would be fine.

‘I’ve got to give a voluntary interview next week,’ I reply, ‘then the Crown Prosecution Service will look at the file and make a decision over the following few days.’

‘They won’t charge you,’ PC Swift reassured me; the furtive glance over her shoulder suggesting she was overstepping the mark with this assertion. ‘It’s very clear you were acting in self-defence.’ She stopped talking abruptly as DI Rampello appeared on the ward, but he nodded in agreement.

‘A formality,’ he said.

As we near the end of Anerley Road I see a police officer in a fluorescent jacket standing in the road. A line of cones closes off one lane, in which two police cars and a white forensics van are still parked, and the police officer is allowing cars to pass in turn. Matt pulls up as close as he can get to the house. He gets out and opens the rear door, helping Katie out and keeping his arm around her as they walk towards the house. Justin follows, his eyes glued to the blue-and-white police tape that flutters in the breeze outside Melissa’s house.

‘Hard to believe, isn’t it, love?’ I say. I pull away from Simon’s embrace and slip my hand into Justin’s. He looks at me, still trying to process everything that’s happened today.

‘Melissa,’ he starts, but words fail him. I know how he feels; I’ve been struggling to find the words ever since it happened.

‘I know, love.’

We wait by the gate, until Simon catches us up and unlocks the door. I don’t look at Melissa’s house, but even without seeing it, I can imagine the white-suited figures in her beautiful kitchen.

Will Neil continue living there? The blood will have dried now, I think, its glossy finish darkening; the edges of each spatter crisping into flakes. Someone will need to clean it, and I imagine them scrubbing and bleaching; the tiles forever hanging on to a shadow of the woman who died there.

My front door swings open. Inside the house is warm and welcoming. I’m comforted by the familiar pile of coats on the banister, and the disorderly heap of shoes by the doormat. Simon stands to one side, and I follow Katie and Simon indoors.

‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ Matt says. He turns to leave, but Simon stops him.

‘Will you join us for a drink?’ he says. ‘I think we could all do with one.’

Matt hesitates, but only for a second. ‘Sure. That would be great.’

I wait in the hall, taking off my coat, and adding to the pile of shoes by the door. Justin, Katie and Matt go through to the lounge, and I hear Matt asking when the tree’s going up, and if there’s anything they want for Christmas this year. Simon comes out of the kitchen carrying a bottle of wine and a fistful of glasses, their stems precariously slotted between the fingers of one hand.

‘Are you coming through?’ He looks at me anxiously, not sure how to help me. I smile reassuringly and promise that I will.

The door is still ajar, and now I open it a fraction more, and stand with the cold air on my face. I make myself look next door, at Melissa’s front garden with its fluttering police tape.

Not to remind myself what’s happened, but to remind myself that it’s over.

And then I shut the door and go to join my family.