But he was a long way from that. Martin had seen the hunger flash across his eyes when he suggested that James come with him. He had seen that – for now – his son’s first love was the high he needed, and his recovery would have to wait.

If it came. That was the worst of it. The uncertainty. The not knowing whether his son would survive. Whether his son wanted to survive.

And he could not go through it again. He could not lose a second child. When Maggie had gone it was as though his world had ended. He had carefully pieced together a life: a career, a wife, a house, his kids, and then it had been taken from him. He had seen how flimsy it all was. And, slowly, he had put it back together again.

It had been all he could manage to avoid doing what James was doing now. He had flirted with it; he had sat in the darkness alone with a bottle in his hand and stared into the abyss, but for whatever reason – and he took no credit, it was no more than dumb luck – he had pulled back from it. Maybe it was James: maybe he knew his son needed him. Whatever it was he had escaped it.

Now James would have to do the same.

And, if it came to it, Martin would make him. He knew that by meeting his son and giving him money he was simply enabling his addiction, but that was fine by him. The alternative was to refuse and leave him penniless. James would then have a choice – give up, or fund his habit by other means. Means that would get him in more trouble, in an even deeper hole. No – it was better, far better, to see him every week or two, make sure he did not need to steal, try to get him to eat something, check he was still functioning.

But the time was coming when Martin would have to find a way to get him out of his squalid flat and into a rehab facility. He wanted that to come from James. He wanted his son to be cured, whole again. He didn’t want him forced into sobriety and fighting it every day of his life.

But it might come to that. And soon. James had looked worse than he had ever seen him. He put his key in the ignition and started the car. He pulled out of the parking space. James’s smell lingered on his clothes.

He shook his head and picked up his phone. He searched for the number of the electric company.

He’d call them and pay the bill. He knew James wouldn’t use the money for that, and he wanted his son to have hot water.

DI Wynne