‘All right,’ I say. He sips his mug of tea, not taking his eyes off me, not filling the silence. ‘Tough, I suppose. Like every week,’ I add, staring at his wall of books. The room smells of them. That old, papery, dusty smell. There seems to be no arrangement whatsoever. Some are back to front. Some lie on their sides along the tops of others. Letters and postcards and flyers are tucked in beside them.

‘You?’ I say, and Jason gives a little laugh out of the side of his mouth.

‘Yeah, had better,’ he says. He checks his watch discreetly. I always see him at five o’clock, and he always accompanies me out into the foyer and leaves with me, heading off in the opposite direction, at ten to six, no matter the weather, no matter how busy he is. I have no idea where he goes, but I do know that it isn’t the train station. He once cryptically referred to it as a long-standing appointment.

‘I have been thinking a lot about Verona,’ I say. He reaches for the tea again, downs half of it in a gulp. It’s funny the clues and signs you spot in a professional relationship. I have no idea if Jason has a partner, a child even, but I know the sound he makes when he gulps too-hot tea. I can tell that he only irons the parts of his shirt that will be on show.

I like this appointment slot at the moment, because the sun sets during it. I go in in the light and emerge into the darkness, which seems fitting somehow.

Jason raises his eyebrows at me. ‘What element of it?’ he asks, his expression open.

‘I guess – if I could have stopped it,’ I say quietly. ‘I should have stopped it. I don’t mean the crime. I mean – the cover-up. My siblings’ cover-up.’

Jason looks beyond me, out of the window, and on to the busy city below. A bus hisses as it pulls away into the mist, disappearing almost completely. Two pigeons are on the windowsill, close enough for me to see their gnarled toes, despite the spikes built there to deter them. The sky is beginning to darken at the edges.

‘We all know,’ Jason says, fiddling with the handle of his mug, ‘that looking backwards leads to sadness, and forwards to anxiety. All we’ve got is now.’

I feel my shoulders relax, and take a breath, the air pushing out my tense stomach. ‘I just – I just don’t know,’ I say, ignoring his advice. He doesn’t labour the point, merely sits there listening, as he is paid to do. ‘There were so many forks in the road, and I don’t know –’

‘Talk me through one of them,’ he says. ‘Your thought process.’

‘The piece of paper we found on Will. William.’

‘Yes. But, Fr –’

‘Nobody knew how significant it would become,’ I interrupt. ‘And I just keep thinking – over and over – about the could-have-beens. If only this, if only that …’ My voice catches as it trails off. ‘Anything but – be here, really. We made so many mistakes.’