‘You killed my mother?’ I prompt him. He looks up at me. In the dark his eyes are like black holes. When he opens his mouth – another black hole. He shakes himself like a dog, pulls himself together. ‘Well, what I mean …’ He stumbles then visibly pulls himself together. ‘What I mean is I killed her spirit.’ He shrugs. ‘I wanted her for what she was, but when I got her I wanted her to change.’

That’s an old familiar tale, but it’s all I’m going to get. Gordon pats my leg under the eiderdown – ‘Sorry if I woke you, old thing,’ – and disappears back into the night. The Dog follows him as far as the doorway, and then flops down on the threshold with a sigh of exquisite misery.