‘You haven’t done yours, Gareth. Whatever your motives, whatever you’re planning, it can’t work. You’ll spend the rest of your life a fugitive, getting poorer. You’ll lose your self-respect. Losing the respect of others is bad enough but loss of self-respect is fatal, you never get it back.’ Keep talking, he was thinking all the time. Waffle on, no matter what the waffle. Talk postponed action. Gareth would probably act only when he had convinced himself there was no alternative, so keep providing one. ‘But I still don’t understand why, Gareth. What really prompted you. Background isn’t enough. It’s all too pat. Millions of people were brought up on council estates and went to local comps and are successful and honest. As were you, once. What changed?’

‘I’m not sure I was, you see, not ever, not inside, anyway. Like I was saying just now. I never actually did anything before but I was always aware of the potential within, always knew I would somehow, always felt I was different. Outwardly I was one of you, but inwardly I was not.’

‘But aren’t we all like that? We’re all inners and outers, all different. You’re one of us after all, Gareth, you’re not different.’ Gareth seemed attentive, engaged. Perhaps it was working. ‘Look, why don’t you just put the gun away and let’s discuss sensibly how we’re going to proceed, what the best future for you is. Chuck the gun in the canal. It’s never going to do you any good.’

Gareth looked down at the gun in his lap, as if noticing it for the first time. When he looked up he was smiling. ‘Right now what I’m considering, Charles, is whether to shoot myself or you.’

Charles compressed his lips and shrugged in feigned indifference. ‘What’s the point in either?’

‘You’re logical, I’ll say that for you. Always have been. Perhaps I should do us both? Or toss for it.’

‘How much have you drunk today?’

‘No more than usual.’ He let go of his whisky, transferred the gun to his left hand, keeping it pointed at Charles, reached into his trouser pocket with his right and fished out a coin. ‘Let’s toss, shall we?’ He proffered it to Charles, holding it between thumb and forefinger.

Charles yawned. Yawning was often a nervous reaction with him. In the army he had yawned repeatedly while sitting, cramped, in the roaring turbulence of a C-130 Hercules, waiting to jump out. He shook his head.

‘Suit yourself.’ Gareth flicked the coin into the air. ‘Heads it’s me, tails it’s you.’ It landed on the thick pile carpet midway between them. ‘What is it?’

‘I can’t see from here.’ If he could get Gareth to leave his chair and bend down he might –might – be able to jump him.

‘You look.’