Knots of people looked on from outside the police cordon. I didn’t look up like them. I knew that if I looked up I might lose my nerve. I was walking a tightrope as it was; I’d gone off-script, I should have stuck to protocol, I should have called in all my visits and reported all of Peter’s behaviour.

Peter was in the bathroom. He’d locked himself in there, that was what the officer who called me had said, but I couldn’t help imagining him falling from the window down towards us, I couldn’t help but picture him explode against the pavement. A stone formed at the base of my throat when I saw the cameras. A TV crew was there already. He told the police he would only speak with me. I knew I needed to be careful and play this exactly right or the night would end badly for us both.

‘Hi,’ I said, approaching the cordon. A fresh-faced officer held up his palms.

‘You can’t get through here.’

‘My name is Margot Scott. The— ’ I paused, searching for the right word ‘—suspect called me a moment ago. I’m a psychologist. I’m his case manager.’

He scanned me from head to toe, his eyes pinched with scepticism. I knew what he was thinking. I got it a lot back then: younger than I was expecting. I was twenty-five, and hoping in the following few years to start my own practice. The cop turned away, searching over his shoulder for someone.

‘Alright,’ he said at last, raising the police tape. ‘Follow me.’

I strolled a pace behind him. They had negotiators for this, but I knew Peter intimately, and I knew why he was locked in there. I knew that his threat of suicide was credible but he would never hurt anyone else. But it was unlikely the police would take my word for it; a man with a handgun is treated as armed and dangerous regardless of the circumstances.

The cops evacuated the building, after the report came in of banging and screaming from Peter’s apartment. The occupants from all the other apartments stood on the street in coats and dressing gowns, arms folded, faces bored, impassive, some frustrated. They knew it would be about Peter; they’d probably seen his sleepless eyes reflected in the elevator or as he passed them in the foyer. Shy, unassuming, but clearly troubled. He’d gotten thin, colourless and gaunt. He reminded me so much of Edward Norton when we first met, but his good looks had faded.

‘Hi,’ I said, when the clutch of officers looked up. ‘I’m a psychologist. I’m Peter’s case manager. I spoke to him a moment ago.’

An older man with a neatly clipped moustache and grey eyes cleared his throat. ‘Right, well, we’ve got guys in there now. He’s barricaded himself in the bathroom. He has a weapon.’