I watch his face. That dumb neutral expression is back. The phone camera is still recording on my desk. If I can get anything close to a confession it should be enough. Then I have another idea. ‘Well, I want you to do me a favour, Joe. Whenever you feel like drinking, can you take a moment to answer a few questions on a sheet? It’s a good way to reflect.’

‘Like homework?’

‘Yeah, just like homework. We’ve talked a little about cognitive behavioural therapy before.’

I stand and go to my desk, hairs rising on my neck. I deliberately take the wrong set of sheets from a drawer and hand them to him.

‘Oh,’ I say, looking down as if only now realising my mistake. I’m so close, it feels like I’m reaching an arm into the Lions cage. ‘This is the wrong one, sorry.’ I pull it, but he holds it for a second, still looking down, then lets go.

I stride to my desk, find the right sheet in a stack of ten. I take them all to him, then sit down.

‘So, fill that out each time you reach for a bottle of whisky. It asks you to write down why you feel like a drink, how you feel after, et cetera. It’s a way of developing mindfulness around the act, so it isn’t simply an impulse. Then we can review your behaviour.’

‘Right,’ he says. His gaze lingers on my desk. I wonder if he can see my phone there, propped on its side. Or perhaps he’s thinking about the sheets, wondering why I took them back the moment he touched them. His tongue runs along the inside of his lip.

I touch my neck, frowning. ‘What happened here, Joe?’

‘What?’

‘Your neck is scratched.’

‘Shaving,’ he says.

That is not a shaving scratch, I think. ‘You did that shaving?’

‘Well, no, it was my wife,’ he says. ‘I was drinking and she tried to grab the bottle out of my hands. I didn’t touch her or anything. I just held her off and she accidentally scratched me.’

I sense he’s lying. ‘Really?’

He looks up. ‘I think we’re finished.’

‘Sorry?’ I say.

He points at the clock. ‘That’s fifty-five minutes.’

He’s right. I turn back with a smile. ‘That went quick.’

I follow him to the side exit. ‘Same time in a fortnight?’ I say.

‘Sure thing. I’ll behave myself until then,’ he says, then gives a laugh as loud and sudden as a gun crack. Then Joe slips outside onto the street and is gone.

As soon as the door closes, I take the top and bottom sheets from the pile he had touched, I gently place them into a ziplock document bag.