He remembers things differently from the way they must have been. For instance, in his memory, he sees his father through the frosted glass in the front door before he actually goes in. A silhouette, a shadow. An unfinished Tarot card—the Hanged Man. He knows this can’t be real; otherwise why would he have closed the door behind him and flicked down the latch? Why would he kick off his trainers and drop his school bag just as he always did? Why would he have opened the fucking door in the first place? But this is the way he remembers it.

In truth, it must have been only after he’d finished all those everyday, habitual actions that he looked up. Richard—and it is at this exact point he begins thinking of the man as Richard, rather than Dad—is hanging from the groaning banister, a thin red cord cutting deeply into the folds of flesh at his neck. They try to hide the detail of the rope’s origin from him, but he finds out. It’s Japanese bondage rope, bought the week before. They find the receipt on his study desk, with the receipt for the paracetamol. Perhaps he had plans to claim them back on expenses.

Richard’s eyes are bulging from his face as though, at the end, this event has taken him by surprise. There is crusted vomit still drying on his collar and chest, and a puddle of urine soaking into the deep shag of the hallway carpet. There is the stench of loosened bowels. Does he remember these things? Or are they, like the silhouette, just ghosts of memories? Things he has put together after the fact. Things he has learned from attending similar scenes.