When they finally entered the house, they found a pan on the hob, its contents burned to something unrecognisable. It had been there for so long that the air no longer carried the acrid scent.
Instead, it smelled of an absence. The windows, cracked open to welcome what the inspector liked to imagine had been birdsong, meant that the untouched contents of the house had had no time to fester.
They had simply waited.
Their daughter said that everything was as it always was. Other than that pan, nothing was out of place.
The only thing missing was her parents.
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