It had been gutted by fire.
The roof was gone completely and half of the walls had collapsed, leaving the charred rooms open to the elements. Pipes and wiring hung out like entrails. Kate swallowed, her heart crashing wildly inside her chest. ‘I... I... I came here... I... I went in... I—’
‘Happened five years ago,’ the driver said, halting the car.
The WPC turned to face her. ‘The parents were separated. The father was up north. The mother must have had some kind of breakdown — bought them all their presents, gave them a wad of cash then left them home alone, instructed them not to speak to anyone, and went off to Switzerland with a boyfriend. Sometime on Christmas Eve, while the kids were asleep, the house caught fire and they were all killed. The mother committed suicide after she was arrested.’
Kate sat in numbed silence and stared at the blackened shell where only a short while ago she had stood in the warm kitchen and smelled wood smoke and seen a tree surrounded by presents, and odd thoughts strayed through her mind.
She wondered whether, if she had stayed, the snow would have continued falling, and whether the kids would have got to open their presents. And she resolved that next year she would go back to the supermarket and, if Daniel was there again, she would accept his invitation to stay.