Sometimes conversations have a rhythm that Dan can spot and count. A cadence, a staccato beat. Right now, this one is taking a pause, while the string section draws back their bows and the saxophonist takes a deep breath before his final solo. Dan wishes he could stay here in the silence. Wishes he could be the bird-flute in Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, light and cheerful. But Dan has a job to do: Dan has a grave to dig for Atticus to bury his ghosts in. Dan has to be the French-horn wolf.

‘Have you ever taken medication for depression?’

Atticus looks at him so sadly then, as if Dan has somehow let him down. ‘You want me to take pills? Find fake happiness in plastic placebos and push me out of the door? How very disappointing.’

‘No!’ Dan jumps up, surprised by his vehemence. ‘Not at all. I don’t believe in medicine, not unless everything else has failed. I believe in …’ He almost says ‘you’ but switches to ‘keep fit, and dogs’ at the last minute. Where the fuck did ‘keep fit’ come from? Dan wonders. He imagines his cousin Luke saying, ‘Dude, the eighties just called. They want their language back.’ He looks down at his notepad and writes, Where is my mind? then circles it to look like he’s had some profound insight about his patient.

His training seems to have deserted him. Nothing in any of the many books he has read has prepared him for what to do when you had a client like Atticus. A client who made you want to check you didn’t have any traces of lunch between your teeth. Dan racks his brains for tactics on how to pull the session back on track. What he needs is a nice stock question.

Atticus hums in the awkward silence, then says, ‘And how do you?’ When Dan looks up Atticus is smiling again, a smile that says, ‘You like me. I know you know you like me.’

‘How do I what?’

‘Keep so very fit?’ Atticus says, his face a picture of innocence.

‘I run,’ Dan says, flushing furiously, then adds, ‘and I encourage my patients to do the same.’

‘Sounds great. Perhaps I’ll try it.’