‘That hairdo doesn’t suit her, and that can’t be a woollen dress. Wool would be much too hot in a TV studio,’ his mother muttered, slurping her white wine.

‘Hmm.’

Anton had no opinions on what material the presenters’ clothes were made from. They didn’t choose what they wore – they had stylists for all that; and their clothes weren’t even their own, so didn’t say anything about their personalities. It was pointless thinking about it. ‘I reckon he’s better-looking now that his hair’s gone grey,’ his mother said, pointing at the screen.

‘Who?’ Anton asked, looking up from his phone.

‘Him, there,’ she said, pointing again. ‘The son of that bloke … the minister.’

She was forgetting names now, so it wouldn’t be long before she would go upstairs to bed. Anton stretched to reach the wine bottle and refilled his mother’s glass. She took a long swig, and then he filled it to the brim.

‘Thanks, darling,’ she said, knocking back half a glass as if white wine was a soft drink. Normally she drank vodka, so for her white wine must be tame stuff. Anton was never going to drink, and he was never going to take any kind of pills; and he would never marry a woman who drank or took pills.

He looked through everything that Júlía had added to Stories on Snapchat, then went to Ask and sent a few questions her way, which he knew she would realise came from him. When she answered, he always got a warm feeling inside, like he was the coolest, best and smartest kid she knew. When he looked up, his mother was asleep, her head thrown back on the back of the chair, snoring quietly with her mouth wide open and the empty wine glass in her hand.

She would undoubtedly sleep there well into the night. He got quietly to his feet and tiptoed cautiously to his father’s study, where he carefully shut the door behind him.

The safe was behind a painting that was fixed to the wall on a set of hinges. When he had been a kid it had been fun to swing the painting aside and show his friends the hidden safe. He had often seen inside the safe when his father was using it, and knew that as well as the documents, it held stacks of banknotes. Under normal circumstances he would never steal money from his father – he had never needed to. He had always been given money for everything he had asked for. But this time it wouldn’t be easy to explain why he needed such a large amount.