Now he was the annoying parent who put his foot in the door and asked endless questions. The difference was that in this case, it wasn’t about a packet of cigarettes or a few well-thumbed porn rags, but the gun Theodor had brought home. About his broken nose, which even though the surgery was weeks ago, was still swollen and a yellowish blue colour. About what had really happened before he came home that night almost four weeks ago.

He had tried, but his attempts had amounted to nothing more than a few awkward enquiries met with an explanation that, in short, Theodor had been walking, completely innocently, through Slottshagen Park on his way to meet up with some friends when he was attacked and robbed at gunpoint. A man had walked by with his pit bull, and that had made the perpetrators drop the gun and run. Theodor had decided to bring the gun home to give to Fabian, the only part of the story that wasn’t clearly a bald-faced lie.

‘It sounded like you and Mum were fighting today,’ he said halfway through dinner. ‘She said something about finding two—’

‘Yes, she found two packets of cigarettes.’ Theodor sighed. ‘Like that’s worth making such a fuss about.’

‘No, I suppose it’s not, though you’re well aware of how your mother and I feel about you smoking. But there’s something else you and I need to talk a bit more about, and that’s that gun of yours.’

‘Why? I’ve already told you everything.’

‘You have, have you?’

‘Um… yes. You’ve asked me, like, a thousand times.’

‘Then how come I feel I’ve had no answers?’

‘How should I know? Don’t ask me.’ Theodor shrugged and helped himself to seconds.

‘As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I’m doing, and just so you know, I’m not going to give up until you tell me exactly what happened that night.’

‘But I already did. What is it you want to hear?’

‘The truth. How about giving that a go? Like who those robbers were, and why they went for you of all people. If there even were robbers. What friends you were going to meet, you who always claim you don’t have any friends. And this man with the pit bull, who you can’t give a description of either. Was he masked, too? And why didn’t he react when you ran off with a gun in your hand? The truth, Theodor. It’s all I ask.’