Had you walked past our house earlier last week, say sometime between the hours of around seven and eight a.m., you would have been forgiven for wondering if you were witnessing some sort of suburban crime scene. Beyond the gently tossing heads of flowers that the kids planted with their father, Dr M, only weeks earlier, through the friendly painted blue door, and down the stretch of newly carpeted stairs, came a sound so harrowing it was enough to startle the heavy fronds of the palm trees. Perhaps it was a reenactment of some sort, a rehearsal for a Shakespearean tragedy?