It took the best part of two days to make the house as secure as I wanted it. By the time I’d finished I was exhausted. I worked whenever it was light, knowing I would have plenty of time to stop and rest once the job was complete. At six-thirty on Tuesday evening – more than a week since the nightmare started – I sat out on the lawn next to Maddy and her mother and looked back at the house with pride. They would have been impressed with what I’d achieved. If nothing else they would have been proud of the fact I had survived when so many others had fallen. Perhaps Janice wouldn’t have been too keen on the aesthetic side of the alterations, but she’d have surely appreciated their practicality. I sat between the graves of my wife and my daughter with a can of beer and the remainder of my dai
