The little boat overshot the ladder at the back of the yacht, but James managed to grab a rung, pulling his shoulder as the two boats united at an awkward angle. He was up and off the small vessel before he realised he’d forgotten to secure it with the rope, and watched it drift further out into the estuary, with no one to see or retrieve it.

He dropped into the little sunken area by the hatch, behind the platform where the wheel stood, and found the lock, untouched for an age while Tony lay dead in the reeds below Kippen Bridge.

It turned easily. James separated the doors, dipped his head and moved inside.

The stench hit him, a mixture of spoiled food and shit, its source not immediately apparent; but light from the narrow windows allowed him to observe his cousin’s territory.

There was a small fridge, but he imagined opening it would make the smell worse. A table was strewn with maps that had spilled out of the shelves above, as though they might have been knocked out by severe pitching. A broken plate and some cutlery on the floor seemed the result of something similar.

But this place was already the antithesis of Tony’s flat. This had the unkempt air of someone who felt entirely at home. James ducked his head again as he passed through a hatch towards the front of the boat. Here were three small doors, a bathroom behind one, the source of the fetid air.

One room gave onto a darker place which was all bed, linen strewn across it. James immediately noticed the bold, dried stains of sex just where they ought to have been, and laughed, imagining Dad finding this most obvious of signs.

Stuffed into the hatches and holes were brochures, books, more maps, and magazines. Their pages revealed the physical gods that James was drawn to on occasion. It was nothing like the revealing porn he’d stashed in his day, but tamer scenes of eighties muscle men with chunky moustaches and bulging scooped shorts.

The makeshift desk mounted onto the wall at the pointy end of the yacht drew him. A shallow, uncluttered drawer contained a few envelopes. Letters and postcards were stuffed into one, with a faded photograph of a dark-haired man who looked as though he could have stepped out of the pages of one of Tony’s magazines.

James scanned the postal marks, dated more than a decade before. He read the words ‘My dearest Tony’, ‘Tony, my love’, and ‘Tones’, with photographs enclosed of sunny days in years past, swimming off the boat in exotic places, barbecues on faraway beaches, this man with his arms around Tony, and Tony’s arms around his. In one shot they were kissing, Tony’s neck thick with enthusiasm.