Harwood pushes the door open and I step inside. There is a man seated at the table, though he isn’t anything like the one I imagined. This one is thirty-nine, forty next month. He has short dark hair that is trimmed neatly around his ears and the front sticks up in a small quiff, with only a faint appearance of grey. His wide eyes, a deep chestnut brown, hide behind thin silver frames and I mouth his name like I expect him to shake his head and tell me I have the wrong room.

Danny stands as the door closes behind me. Tears spring to my eyes as I slowly walk over and, by the time I reach the table, he has sat down again. All the time he doesn’t take his eyes off me.

I sit silently. My mouth opens but no words come out. I want to tell Danny he looks good. That despite what he says he has done, he looks handsome and smart. His mouth twitches as if he too is searching for the right words and it seems like an eternity before I speak.

‘I’ve missed you,’ I say. The words splinter into the air and he raises his eyes above my head as if he’s trying to catch them. Really I know he’s struggling to hold his emotions, because it’s what Danny always did: looked over our heads when he didn’t want to cry.

Immediately we are kids again. I am back with my brother in our treehouse, curled up on the cushions, silently doing our own things. Tears roll down my cheeks and I fumble in my bag for a tissue I know I don’t have, resorting to wiping them away with my sleeve.

‘Thank you for agreeing to see me,’ he says finally, in a deep, gravelly voice that doesn’t sound right. It isn’t the one I’ve had in my head, but then maybe the years have replaced my memories with false ones.

‘Of course. I’ve wanted to see you for years.’

‘I mean for coming now. Now you know what I’ve done.’

‘Oh Danny,’ I say, letting out a deep breath. ‘You’re my brother.’

He looks further away, staring at a point in the corner of the room. I want to reach for his hands but they are out of sight and we fall into another silence that weighs down on me.

I search his face until the boy behind it peeks through. I see him now behind the lines under his eyes, the light stubble on his cheeks.

‘I hear you’ve been living in Scotland?’ I ask.

He nods.

‘The police mentioned a place called Girvan. I’ve no idea where that is.’

‘It’s on the west coast,’ Danny tells me. ‘I live outside of it.’

I nod, though still none the wiser. ‘He said you sell your art online?’