‘I was glad at the time, I felt I was old enough to understand, to appreciate it. Didn’t it, sort of, bring us closer? My point is: nothing’—he was speaking to the ground, shaking his head with each word—‘not a crowbar, not a war, not a goddamn alien invasion, could split us Cunninghams up. And then’—he lifted his gaze, pointed at my chest—‘you did.’

I flinched, looking down to break eye contact, and noticed there was a fork on the room service tray but no knife. I had a split second to decide if he hadn’t been provided one for safety, or if he’d secreted it and it might suddenly emerge from his sleeve. ‘If I’m just here so you can tell me that you didn’t do it, just get it over with.’

‘I did kill Alan Holton.’ His words were slow. Deliberate.

I wanted to put my fingers in my ears and stick out my tongue like a child. My mind was racing through the possibilities. I didn’t want to hear how he’d picked a random victim and murdered him in the snow, how he was happy to be locked in the fetid room, just to get me alone. How he’d planned it with Lucy, who’d suggested the Drying Room. I didn’t want the last thing I heard to be him gloating that he’d got to me. That he’d slept with my wife. (Okay, so I did care. A little.) I wanted to flick the chair over and bolt for the door, but I had the disadvantage of having to stand up and turn around first; he’d be on me before I took a proper step. And if he had a knife . . .

I would have to try to bargain, I realised. ‘I have the mone—’

‘I did it on purpose.’ Michael silenced me with a hand in the air. ‘I put my hands around his neck until he stopped moving. And then you – you, my brother – sent me to prison.’

Then he lunged, rattlesnake quick.

Suddenly everything I was thinking just became white, like my mind was in a blizzard of its own or I was already dead and didn’t know it, and Michael’s arms were around my . . .

. . . back.

My back. Not my neck. And there was no knife. He was hugging me. I gingerly reciprocated, holding his shoulders. There was a lot to hang on to.

‘Thank you,’ he murmured into my shoulder. I sat stunned, still not sure if I’d actually died, and trying to decide if responding with ‘You’re welcome’ was polite or ridiculous in the circumstances. He sniffed. ‘I’m sure no one in this family has told you that you did the right thing, and I’m the last one you’d be expecting to hear it from.’

‘Something like that.’