‘They call here, you know,’ he tells Jim. ‘These so-called journalists. Hacks. Bloody vermin they are. Shouting through the letterbox, trying to get me to cooperate with their interview requests. It’s harassment. And look! Let me show you.’ He hurries to the dresser and shuffles through one of the drawers. Then, returning to the table, he places the cards in front of Jim. ‘They drop these in my letterbox – their business cards. Can you believe it? As if I’m going to call them up and invite them in. Vermin. Parasites, that’s all they are.’

‘Just ignore them,’ Jim says, flicking through the cards with casual disinterest. ‘Keep your head down. They’ll soon get bored.’

‘I ought to sue the bastards.’

Jim looks up. ‘For what?’

‘For what? For libel, that’s what.’

‘Still maintaining your innocence, are you?’ Jim asks, in a flat, disbelieving tone.

‘Of course I bloody am!’ he snarls, leaning forward with some force of feeling so that his face is right up close to Jim’s, veins bulging in his neck.

As Jim recoils Anton realizes he has gone too far, revealed something of his nature that he had not intended to. He straightens, waits for the heat in his face to dissipate. Then, in a calmer, more reasoned voice, he says: ‘Look, I know you have your job to do, and I know it must make it easier for you just to accept a man’s conviction on the face of it, but you don’t know the facts. You weren’t there. You don’t know what went on. I did not kill my wife. It was an intruder – a man the police never found. I went to jail because of their incompetence.’

Jim watches him coolly. He flips the paper to the front page, points to the tabloid header. ‘It’s a rag, Anton. I can’t imagine many people round here even read this sort of newspaper.’

‘Oh, they’ve read it. Don’t you worry about that.’

‘Look, it’s to be expected at first that there’ll be a little … atmosphere. That relations will be a bit awkward, a bit chilly. But in a few weeks it’ll die down. I’m telling you. People have other things on their minds besides you and your past misdemeanours. In the meantime, just keep your head down. Carry on as normal.’

Normal, Anton thinks, whatever that might be. He’d like to know.

Jim is rolling up the paper into a tube or a truncheon, preparing to leave. ‘You know, you’re in a much better situation than a lot of the blokes I see,’ he tells Anton. ‘You’ve got your own place, your son’s nearby.’

‘I should count my blessings, should I?’ Anton asks caustically.

‘That’s the ticket.’ Jim grins and taps the rolled newspaper on the edge of the table.