‘Are you playing ga—’ He pushed open the door to the living room and the sight stole away the rest of his sentence. His eyes were pulled to where the big window flared bright. In front was a silhouette of his best friend but he knew instantly something was wrong. Glenn sat in his armchair but he was slumped over to one side. His chest, which always had a visible rise and fall, was still. As Richard approached his friend, he could see that his eyes were also still and any signs of life behind them gone. It didn’t look real, like someone had replaced his best mate with a dummy and dressed it in a vest soaked in blood.

‘Jesus, Glenn!’ Richard shot his hand out, his fingers already poised to search for a pulse. Nothing. His skin felt cold and the blood that was thick on his front was already drying. Richard knew a thing or two about blood, about what it looked like, and he knew what death looked like: here it was, seated in front of him. He spun on his heels. His reactions might have dulled over time but the training was still there. He took in the room, assessing for threats. The only movement was from a flickering television playing silently to itself. It took Richard a couple of moments to realise that the figure moving on the screen was familiar.

It was him.

It was CCTV footage. In it, he was walking down a long corridor towards a door. The screen changed and he was still watching himself but now the view was angled down to where he was entering a big office. The screen version of him was hesitating on the threshold, his face turned towards the ground. The angle didn’t show what he was looking at but of course Richard knew – this happened just yesterday, after all. He had been looking at a typed note on the floor. It took just a few seconds for him to read it and for his face to look back up, though Richard remembered it as being much longer. The black folder was clear in his hands.