‘I WANTED YOU to have changed. I wanted to believe you were a better person. You met my father, you got drunk with him, you made him break up with my mum. You did this.’

‘I didn’t,’ I protest, but he carries on as if he hasn’t heard me.

‘You killed him and then you just thought you would do the same again. You let me break up with someone you thought was my girlfriend. You drank with me. You kissed me.’

‘You kissed me,’ I say, regretting it instantly. The force of my words causes me to sway on the chair for a heart-stopping moment.

He continues speaking. ‘Do you see what I am saying? You haven’t changed. You don’t regret what you did to my dad, do you? How could you when you would just as soon do it again. I presented an unstable patient profile, vulnerable, self-sabotaging and you still got too close.’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘Oh I do,’ he says, suddenly. He walks behind me, pausing in the square of moonlight coming in through the window. An angry hiss of paper shuffling. ‘Margot visited me again today. We’re falling in love …’ He drops a page. ‘We kissed. I felt alive for the first time in years. She told me she wants to be with me … We kissed again and this time we did more. I left Jenny for her …’ Another page falls. ‘I can’t blame Nathan, he’s only three years old, and yet I know the fact of his existence doesn’t make this any easier.’ Oh, this next one is a real doozie. ‘I’m doing it tonight. I told her I have the gun. I told her if I can’t be with her I don’t want to live. Remember that, Margot? It gets better. She told me that she’s with Gabriel now. She told me she can’t save me.’ He circles me, dropping the pages one by one.

‘Where did you get them?’ I say.

‘They were in my mother’s things. She knew all along and she protected you. She could have ruined your life but she forgave you. She was too weak to do the right thing. She didn’t blame you, but I do.’

‘What were you searching for?’ I say. ‘The times you broke into my house.’