Nathan probably inherited a fair portion of the Schultz fortune when his mum died. The fact they were never married means he simply kept his mum’s last name. He has the means and the motive. But he doesn’t know that I know who he is. That’s my single advantage.

I think about him now. July isn’t responding to his text messages and he will be growing angrier. I press the accelerator hard, racing towards home.

Prosecutor: ‘And finally, Mr Simms if you would be so kind to read this final document.’

Simms: ‘Documentary evidence – Exhibit A: Personal diary extract.’

‘It’s all over for me. Jenny doesn’t want me near my own child anymore and when she gives birth again, I won’t be able to go near the baby. She’s got enough money to make sure I’m out of their lives. Sometimes I think of the life I could have had, what I gave up for Margot and what she refused to give up for me. I can’t leave the apartment, I can’t do anything. I just sit here, the sadness piling on, until I’m convinced the floor is cracking and I’m falling, swallowed by the earth. Some days it’s like that and some days it’s like I’m light, like I’m losing mass, as though I’m just fading, silently disappearing.’

Prosecutor: ‘Thank you. And now if you could skip to the third paragraph where the text is highlighted.’

Simms:

‘Margot told me she shouldn’t be coming over to see me at all. She told me I would be getting a new case manager because she will lose her job, her career and the seven years she has spent studying and working if anyone finds out about us, which I realise now is much more important to her than me. So she’s found someone else. She’s giving up on me and settled for normality and I’m finally accepting it. I’m accepting that I’ll never be happy. I’m accepting that life is not for me. I don’t blame her or this new man but I just wish it was different.

Gabriel, that’s his name. She’ll live her happy suburban life and wake up one day to realise how banal and meaningless her existence has become, and I’ll be rotting bones by then.

I thought she was different. I thought she needed chaos like me, not some fidgety paper-pusher. He’s younger too, more her own age. He doesn’t have the baggage, the mania, the depression, the spells of pure unadulterated insanity, and he doesn’t have a son. 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.