Ten efficient paragraphs formed in James’s head, smothering his mother in enough platitudes to completely let her off the hook. Yet it wouldn’t matter how many in-depth analyses he was asked to do, he’d probably never get any closer to the truth than this.

But James had hidden the truth from Mum, too.

He’d left home in the suburbs for a cadetship on a city newspaper, letting her believe that any one of his flatmates might be girlfriend material. But whenever the question of his sexuality occurred to someone else on the rental agreement, James always found an excuse to move on to another awkward house-share arrangement.

Eventually, Dylan had saved him from all that. When James had written an article on a suburban school winning an award, his interviewee was the handsome teacher who’d found his way into the newsroom to collect a few extra copies for his mother, and quietly asked James on his first date.

Once or twice, James had come close to telling Mum about Dylan, but there’d been so much bad news in the family by then that he wasn’t sure she could take any more. When she died a couple of years later, she seemed content to disappear beyond all the blame laid at her feet by three generations of the Brandts.

He slapped the pages of the court records together, shoved them back into the envelope and looked for his coffee, but both waitresses were busy sorting takeaway cups into trays. Despite being a winter’s day, the sun was belting through the high windows, and there was heat coming off the linoleum floor. Heat he hadn’t felt, until now.

Numb.

The word was unfair. Very unfair. “Afraid” was a better descriptor. Always so fucking afraid to be real, just in case.

In case what?

He checked his watch. It was coming up to half-past two.

In case someone decides they don’t like you, because you’re gay.

That was the story he really wanted to write. He reached for his pen, flattened the envelope, and wrote:

2005, Tony’s death at Kippen Bridge.

But immediately he corrected it:

2005, Tony’s death at Kippen Bridge killed at Kippen Bridge.

James tested even that word in his heart, then crossed it out again:

2005, Tony’s death at Kippen Bridge killed at Kippen Bridge. MURDERED.

The next dates took their place slightly higher:

Around 2003, Mark Beaumont attacked over the border.

1985, Brian Fryer murdered at Kippen Bridge.

Was that all? James felt there was another crime, or a suggestion of one, somewhere in this mix of dates. He wanted to put it in the 1980s, but felt it should go earlier.

Just then, his father slid into the booth opposite and shoved two coffees down.

‘Best coffee in the border country, this. Drink up.’

James turned the envelope over and went for the sugar.

‘We didn’t know where you’d gone,’ Dad said.