‘Flatmate’ was a generous way of describing their relationship, as was the case with all the people who had moved in and out in the three years since Michaela left. The two of them weren’t close; they’d barely had a detailed exchange until that recent night, still mortifying to think about, when she’d seen him crying. James generally came home from work at the station at around seven, and usually Steffi was already out, waiting tables, by then. Their main transactions revolved around the Amazon packages which Steffi was always receiving early in the morning, and which James collected for her because he knew she would still be asleep. Sometimes he thought he had more conversations with the delivery man – who always said the same thing, ‘just a signature here please, chief’ – than with Steffi herself. But he certainly didn’t want her to think badly of him now he was gone. That was why, as well as making sure the flat was nice, he had left her an email with detailed instructions: how to contact Michaela, who was still the landlady, and what to say to anyone who got in touch.

Steffi (there was no denying it) would be inconvenienced a little by what he was about to do. It was bad news logistically if the other person in your flat killed himself. But she was a capable, practical woman – he knew that much about her. She’d be fine.

Everybody would be fine. In a few cases their lives would be better, in fact, as a result of this. If James hadn’t believed that, he would not have made this decision. He helped himself to a second biscuit, turning it upside down as usual to enjoy the hit of the chocolate coating a couple of seconds more quickly.

‘God, that’s nice,’ he found himself muttering, and grinned at the oddness of the situation. It was so freeing to have made this decision. I feel alive, he thought, somewhat ironically.

A third biscuit. Eighty-six more illegal calories. He could still remember the figure from the weight-loss app that used to patrol his and Michaela’s diets like a prison guard. Eighty-six calories, astoundingly, in a single biscuit. But it wasn’t illegal any more. There could be eight million calories in a biscuit, he thought, and it wouldn’t matter. Nothing was a problem any more. He visualized for a second an insanely large biscuit, himself eating his way through it, and almost smiled again as he realized where the thought came from: Sally had once helped him get off to sleep with a made-up story in which he was trapped inside a giant peach, like his Roald Dahl namesake. But the thought of her gave him a pang of sorrow – they would never be young and full of in-jokes and cynicism again, never be brother and sister again – and he forced it away. There was no room for that stuff now.