‘Oh, yes, but maybe after work. I could cook dinner or we could go out. I’m meeting Phil Doyle later, but we’d have a few hours still.’

The pause that follows feels awkward, and Anton rushes to fill it. ‘Only if you’re not busy, though.’

‘Listen, I’d love to but I’ve got this thing on –’

‘No, that’s fine! Not to worry –’

‘Sorry, Dad. I’ll try to call over at the weekend, okay? We’ll go for a walk. Get a pint somewhere.’

‘All right, son. I’ll leave it up to you.’

He lays the phone down in its cradle and raises his fingers to pinch the bridge of his nose. How craven he must have sounded to his son. How desperate.

It has not gone well with Mark since his release. Absurd to suppose it would. But somehow, over the years, through every awkward encounter in a prison visiting hall, every letter received that made him want to bang his head against the wall with regret, Anton always told himself that once he was out it would be different. They would be able to have a real relationship. Maybe not as close or as normal a bond as other fathers and sons – he wasn’t expecting intimacy or shared confidences – but he would like a little access to his son’s world. A very small window would do.

As he stands in the hall, massaging the tension from his forehead, Anton becomes aware of sounds – occasional small cracking noises from outside the house. He listens for a moment. There’s a brief interval and he hears it again, this time from higher up the wall, somewhere above the fanlight over the hall door. A sharp tap and then nothing. Perhaps he imagined it. But when it happens again, this time on the bay window in the sitting room, he rushes in to see egg yolk sliding down the pane, fragments of shell adhering to the window.

‘Bastards,’ he mutters, hurrying to the front door.

The sun glares down on the doorstep. He has to squint against it. But there, across the road at the edge of the park, he sees two boys – barely teenagers – facing his house and laughing. One is already poised to throw another missile, and Anton shouts: ‘Hey!’

He ducks but the boy’s aim is true. Anton feels the shock of it pelting his shoulder, horrified by the gluey mass running down his shirt. Fury rushes up his throat.

‘You little pricks!’ he roars, coming down the steps, but they are off, racing over the green, and by the time Anton is halfway across the road, they are already past the tennis courts, disappearing out of sight.