“Chester rushed from the bathroom and into his mother’s bedroom. Patricia was propped up in bed. Thin, liver-spotted skin hugged her hunched skeleton, and long white hair draped over the shoulders of a faded pink nightie. She was a frail stick of a woman: brittle and ready to snap.

‘We need meat. Without it, we’re both going to die. Do you understand?’

The cramps had become unbearable, and Chester was dry vomiting now. His mother was worse; her gums had started to bleed, and she had spells of unconsciousness. Chester prayed for help, but his pleas fell unanswered.

He didn’t have to travel far. Covering his mouth with a scarf, he popped around to her back garden and tapped on the door with a claw hammer. The incident was quick but brutal. A full force blow to the forehead, her eyes rolled, and she collapsed.

Chester propped her against the garden fence, lifted Mrs. Finnegan onto his shoulders, and stripped her naked, pouring two bottles of antiseptic liquid over her leathery skin, washing her down with a hose.

When he’d finished, Chester burnt Mrs. Finnegan’s clothes in his garden chiminea and hosed the evidence off the patio slabs and onto the pea shingle border.”