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I sat heavily onto the sofa. Maybe the accident involving Izzy had also been unintentional? A bit like my Santa stabbing? Drew couldn’t have known what Kerr’s intentions were when he witnessed the aftermath of the car accident. We had just assumed Kerr had done it deliberately because of his threats about the cat poop in his flower bed, and then Kerr had denied the whole thing, which in my mind had only cemented his guilt.

I sighed, exhausted by my own thoughts. Perhaps I’d just go into town early and get a bit of Christmas shopping done. That should take my mind off my anguish.

Izzy jumped up next to me, meowing loudly. I scratched behind her ears. “Don’t you try that with me. You’ve already been fed, you little minx.”

She blinked up at me, giving the wide-​eyed Puss in Boots I’m-so-cute-​you-​should-​give-me-what-I-want look.

“You naughty little cutie,” I murmured, scratching under Izzy’s chin. “Is that what you’ve been telling Kerr, over at his place? That I haven’t fed you? Does he give you extra treats?”

Izzy blinked innocently, and I suspected the answer was yes.

Now that the going was good and I had completed my spying on Kerr, I finally opened my living room blinds. The sight of his fallen Santa needled my conscience yet again. Perhaps once he got home I should own up to it and offer to pay for the damages.

My phone buzzed with a video call and I realized it was Mum. I’d missed her the other night when I’d tried to FaceTime her.

I connected the call. “Hi.”

The camera came online, with a perfect view of my mum’s chin.

“Mum, you need to lift your phone. I can only see your chin.”

“Oh.” She lifted the phone and brought her forehead into view.

I sighed. “That’s too high, Mum. I can only see your forehead now.”

“Oh.”

Another shift, and now I could see her neck, with the ends of her dyed blonde hair framing the edges.

“How’s this?”

I bit my lip. “Fine.”

“When can you come and check these emails?”

My heart sank. I didn’t really have time just now. Then a bright idea hit. “Just flip your camera round and show me the email on your laptop.”

“Flip the camera? You mean turn the phone around?”

“No, you can keep the screen facing you and just press the button to flip the camera so that it’s looking outward. You’ll be able to see the image that you’re sending me that way.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

I tried not to audibly sigh. “Fine. Just turn the phone around, then.”

Her phone clattered onto the table, and for a minute or so I admired my parents’ living room ceiling while listening to Mum shout, “Imran! Fetch me the laptop!” Then a moment later Dad calling back, “I can’t find it, Kirsty!” and then Mum muttering about how he was neither use nor ornament and going off to find it herself.

Eventually, the phone was picked up and turned from my mum’s concentrating face (so now she was able to get her face on-screen?!), with my dad waving in the background, to the wall opposite their sofa. For a moment I had a great view of their television—​Frasier was on. Then the camera swooped down onto the laptop screen, and away again back up to the TV.

“I can’t see the screen, Mum.”

The camera swooped down again, back up, then down and off to the side, their living room window coming into view. Then it swept left again, skidding past the screen to where their Christmas tree wrapped in silver tinsel and dripping with multicolored shiny baubles came into view. Then the camera skittered over the screen again, the writing on it a blur as it rushed past, and I began to feel a little seasick.

Resigned, I sighed out loud this time. “Never mind, Mum. I’ll just come round later.”

“Fine.”

*