‘Is that all? I mean, I’ve looked online. There are houses round here going for way more than that.’

‘Let me guess. You thought it would be at least seven figures?’

Anton tiptoes to the stairs, puts a hand to the banister. From where he is standing, if he angles his head he can just glimpse them. Blonde hair arranged into a neat chignon. A black trouser suit, handbag over her shoulder, a clipboard in her hands. He cannot see her face. They stand by the bottom of the stairs, Mark peering down at a sheet of paper, tension in his shoulders.

‘The market is slow at the moment,’ the woman says. ‘Houses like this one – large properties in need of a serious cash injection – are challenging to sell right now. People are worried about Brexit, and the recession is not in the distant past either. Buyers remember. And this house needs at least two hundred thousand pumped into it before you could even move in.’

Anton listens as she reels off all the negatives, needled by a sense of intrusion. Anger stirs to life inside him, caused by her presence, by Mark’s presumption. He grips the banister tightly.

‘Eight hundred thousand is still a lot of money,’ the woman says.

‘What if we were to paint it,’ Mark says, ‘maybe put in an Ikea kitchen?’

‘Look, Mr Woodbury – Mark.’ She softens a bit. Her voice drops, grows conspiratorial. Anton strains to hear. ‘Attracting a buyer would be difficult enough but we have an added problem here. Yours is what we term in the business a stigmatized property.’

The sour taste is back in Anton’s mouth. He starts softly down the stairs.

‘It refers to a property that buyers may shun for reasons unrelated to its features or physical condition,’ she goes on, unaware of Anton coming down behind her. ‘People are squeamish at the thought of their house having once been the site of a suicide, or a murder.’

‘It’s not haunted,’ Mark says, laughing a little but it’s clear she’s offended him.

‘Listen, I’m just pointing out the facts. Personally, it wouldn’t bother me.’ Then, her voice changing, losing its edge of professionalism, she asks: ‘So your father is out of prison, then?’

Anton bristles at her curiosity. Her prurience.

‘That’s right,’ Mark answers stiffly.

‘And you’re all right with him?’ she asks. ‘I mean, it was your mother he killed, wasn’t it? And yet you’re living here with him? You’ve forgiven him?’

‘That’s really none of your business,’ Mark says, and then he looks up and sees Anton.

The woman turns around. Her eyes, heavily fringed with mascaraed lashes, flare with interest and disdain. And Anton sees himself through her gaze: an old man in his pyjamas, wild and bewildered, a dangerous animal on the loose.