Charles didn’t move. He imagined getting off the sofa, bending to pick up the coin and being shot in the top of his head.

Gareth transferred the gun back to his right hand and extended his arm, pointing it steadily at Charles. ‘Go on, do as I say. No surprises, I promise.’

For a few seconds Charles still didn’t move. He was calculating whether, if he got up to get the coin, he would be close enough to make a grab for the gun. Not quite, he reckoned. On the other hand, better chance that than stay where he was and be shot on the sofa. After all, it was possible that it was all bluff, that the gun wasn’t loaded. Though he doubted that.

He got up slowly, took two paces forward and stooped to pick up the coin. It was a pound; he had assumed it would be a euro. He could see as he bent down that it was tails. He turned it as he picked it up. ‘Heads,’ he said, holding it out slightly to his left so that Gareth would have to turn his head to see. That would be his chance.

But Gareth did not turn his head. Instead, he sighed, raised his eyebrows and settled farther back in his chair, relaxing. ‘Always trusted you to tell the truth, Charles. Always have.’ He put the pistol to his right temple, midway between ear and eye, and fired.

The noise was concussing, a physical shock that seemed to shake the room. Gareth’s head jerked sideways and blood and other matter splattered across the table, some of it reaching the wall. There was the instant familiar smell of a discharged firearm, mixed with something sweeter. Charles stood with his left arm still outstretched and holding the coin with the Queen’s head turned upwards. Gareth’s body slumped in the chair, lolling sideways, his head coming to rest against the back of it, his left elbow still on the table, his right arm hanging limp. The gun fell to the carpet with a muffled thump.

Charles could not say afterwards how long he had stood looking at the body. It might have been only seconds, certainly less than a minute. He remembered a couple of inconsequential thoughts that offered themselves while he was thinking there was no point in attempting resuscitation. One was that Gareth had shot himself as Hitler had, with a pistol to the right temple, and that perhaps Hitler had looked as Gareth looked now, slumped and lifeless. The other was that he should pocket the coin rather than return it to Gareth’s trousers with his fingerprints on it. That, on reflection, was not so inconsequential after all. He pocketed the coin and tiptoed out into the hall, as if it were necessary not to wake Gareth.