At three on a Monday afternoon, a helicopter positioned itself over Jen’s house. She wasn’t aware of it at the time, as she wasn’t home. Like most people at that time, she was out making a living.

The house was detached, on a country road miles from anything. She had inherited it from her mother, complete with red roof, pink walls and nice garden with carefully trimmed hedge. The bus only came twice a day, but in return for this isolation and lack of mobile phone reception, she was able to live in rural paradise. It was a good two minutes’ walk to the next house on the road.

All of those details made the plan a lot easier. The chopper hovered overhead for a second; a man in a flight suit was reported to have leaned out of the side door and looked down, as if checking their position. Seconds later, both the rotors stopped dead.

For a mile around, locals had been looking up, because flights overhead were rare in these parts. No sooner had they gotten used to the roar overhead than it fell silent. Like a bird with a sudden heart attack, it dropped. Not quite straight down, but there was no way it was going to miss Jen’s home.

It crashed through the roof tiles, scattering them across the grass, and rammed itself into the top floor, knocking the carpet aside before accessing the ground level. It seemed certain that everyone on board was dead, but the pilot was able to make one last move: he turned the rotors back on.

They managed a few turns, ripped a few more walls apart, before giving it up. Minutes later, both the crew passed away from their massive external injuries.

All of this happened in a matter of minutes, and would have been the closest Jen ever came to starring in an action movie, had she been at home. The first she heard about it was a phone call from a neighbour, which ran a little like this:

‘Good afternoon, Jennifer Campbell speaking?’

‘Hello dear, it’s Olive from down the road.’

‘Hi Olive; is something wrong?’

‘Well, I’m afraid I have some bad news, Jennifer.’

Still, Jen wasn’t that worried. ‘What is it? Has some kid pissed in my front garden again?’

‘No, I . . . ’ A pause. Jen wasn’t sure if Olive was upset by the bad news, or because the word “pissed” had been used. ‘I’m afraid someone’s crashed a helicopter through your roof.’

‘I see.’ That didn’t seem an adequate response. ‘Hang on, what?’

‘Yes, dear. It’s a terrible mess. I think your mother’s old chest of drawers ended up in four pieces on the lawn.’

It turns out Olive didn’t really have much else to contribute. Good news about that hideous chest, though; Jen had never been able to think of an excuse to set it on fire.

Her manager eventually agreed that a helicopter executing a comedy pratfall onto her roof warranted leaving work early, so she was able to stumble from the office. Due to the crippling lack of public transport to her village, she was faced with a half-hour drive back. She gritted her teeth and concentrated on not following the helicopter’s path into suicide.

When she finally arrived, the police were everywhere. Not only that, the security services had rolled up. That meant there were several expensive black cars along with a scattering of fully lit-up police vehicles. It looked like a drugs raid at a high-end dealership.

And next to all that was the smashed-open shell of her house. The tail of the helicopter stuck through a wall, with no one taking much action to remove it. There was a red smear visible through the window; the laws of chance suggested it was probably one of the pilots.

The disgusting pink walls were a little more exciting with the red blobs, though. Another win for artistic design over her mother’s tedium.

‘So, uh, Miss Campbell?’

A man in a suit was lurking nearby; she wasn’t sure how he’d known who she was. Still, she was hardly in any position to deny it. ‘Yes?’

‘We, um, it looks like this may have been a suicide attack, I’m afraid.’

That was fairly obvious, Jen thought, since they were both dead and must have expected to die. But she just said ‘Really?’ and tried to sound surprised.

‘Yeah, they seemed pretty determined to take this place out. And it’s possible these men may have been on a terror watch list already. Although we are having trouble identifying them conclusively due to their injuries.’

‘So were they Al Qaeda or something?’

‘I don’t think I can comment for sure.’

‘So can you tell me anything else?’

‘Not a lot, I’m afraid, Miss.’

‘Did that pink frilly shed out back survive?’

‘Completely totaled, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh. That’s a shame.’

Apparently well-trained in empathy, the spook in the suit nodded smartly before marching in the opposite direction, leaving Jen to ponder the wreckage of her pleasant country home.

For at least ten seconds before the phone rang. She thought it might be the press, asking for a quote on her apparent attack by international terrorists, but it wasn’t.

‘Evening, Jen.’

‘Hi there . . . guy from the pub the other night?’ She suspected that wasn’t his favourite nickname.

‘Ed.’

‘Right, Ed. Of course.’

‘So, what do you think?’

She took a few steps away from the authorities and lowered her voice.

‘Yeah, I know I said I hated the look of Mum’s old house and wished I could get the insurance money and redecorate, but . . . ’

‘And now you can!’

‘I really thought you were bullshitting about knowing a guy in Al Qaeda, though.’

Ed’s voice audibly inflated. ‘Can’t believe they bought the story about your house being a high-ranking safe house.’

‘No. Me neither.’

‘You can stay ’round mine while they rebuild if you like.’

She smirked. ‘No. Good effort, though.’

‘Damn.’

Bored suddenly, Jen hung up on him. Had she known Ed was serious, she might’ve checked whether her insurance actually covered terrorist attacks.

Nick Bryan lives in London with his messy hair.