The Cruellest Game

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Do you know that feeling when you walk into a house and you’re instantly absolutely sure that it’s empty? That no one is there. Even if someone should be.

That’s how it was the day it happened. The day my life, my nice comfortable ordinary life, changed for ever.

I’d recently gone back to teaching, just one day a week, every Thursday, at Okehampton College, our nearest community school. I liked to keep busy when my husband Robert was away working. Not that looking after our home and our son wasn’t quite enough most of the time.

This was a Thursday. The 3rd of November 2011. After work I’d gone to the supermarket. We grew most of our own vegetables at home and this was a mild and gentle autumn, so we still had lettuces in the ground along with leeks, carrots and young Brussels sprouts. Our spinach would keep going through the winter, and we had potatoes and apples in store. I’d intended just to shop for more of the things a good mother should try to feed a growing teenager, like fish, chicken and wholemeal bread. But I’d also picked up several of my son’s favourite pizzas, a rich chocolate cake and a block of clotted-cream ice cream. I could never resist spoiling Robbie.

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