I didn’t know about any of this shit. I was a kid, I was seventeen, and when something in his head snapped, I was into all sorts. I didn’t see much of Rachel, I steered clear, he was doing my head in with all his preachifying. I don’t like to say it, I mean he was my brother, but when someone goes all self-righteous on you like that, it does your head in. He had his life, I had mine. He had this big job with this giant American company, he had the girl, the house, the car, the credit cards, every second of his day accounted for, me, I was zoning round H24 with the dregs of the estate. The H24 Estate is classed SUA-1 – Sensitive Urban Area, Category 1. There’s no room to breathe, you stumble out of one fuck-up into another. One morning, Ophélie phones me to tell me what’s happened. She’d stopped by the house to check on her ex. ‘I had this feeling,’ she said. Momo – he’s the son of the halal butcher – he lent me his moped and I bombed down there. There were people milling round everywhere – cops, paramedics, neighbours, rubberneckers. Rachel was in the garage sitting on the ground, his back to the wall, legs stretched out, chin on his chest, mouth open. He looked like he was asleep. His face was black with soot. He’d been here all night, bathing in exhaust fumes. He was wearing these creepy striped pyjamas I’d never seen before and his hair was all shaved off like a convict or something. It was freaky. I didn’t react, didn’t say anything. I couldn’t take it in. This paramedic says, ‘Is he your brother?’ I said ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say?’ I just shrugged and headed into the sitting room.

Ophélie was in there with Com’Dad, he’s the area police commissioner. She was crying, he was taking notes. When he saw me, he said, ‘Come here a minute.’ He asked me some stuff. I told him I didn’t know anything. This was true – I didn’t see much of Rachel. I had a feeling he was stressed about something, but I just thought, he’s got his shit, I’ve got mine. It sounds pathetic when you put it like that, but that’s life, we’ve got suicides all the time on the estate. When it happens you’re like, What the fuck? You’re bummed for a couple of days and a week later you’ve forgotten all about it. You think, that’s life, and you get on with things. This time, it was my brother, my big brother, I had to get my head round it.