By the time the inevitable note arrives from Samuel – grovelling excuses scratched in haste, blaming the journalist for a loose-tongued conversation oiled by afternoon drinks – Edward’s anger has cooled. He knows that any of the lectures Samuel holds will, in content at least, be no better than his own. Granted, it is too late for this season, but perhaps spring could mark the commencement of the joint venture they had planned. A new year, a new start. Yes, Edward thinks, and perhaps this time I shall pre-empt the announcement myself, give Samuel a taste of his own medicine. He smiles at the thought before scribbling a short note in return, forgiving his friend but not troubling to disguise his disappointment in him too.

After dinner, Edward takes one of the black and tan mongrels he has been keeping in the basement for a short walk before killing it. The dog eagerly follows him back to the inky depths of the underground rooms, hoping for a titbit of some kind but instead finds itself lifted up onto Edward’s stained but clean dissection table. The dog’s tail wags, thinking it is a jolly jape of some kind until Edward ties its mouth closed. Whimpering, it tries to wriggle away, paws skittering against the table, panic in its eyes as Edward restrains it, tightly buckling up the leather straps until the dog lies pinioned. Edward pats its velvety side one last time, feeling its heart flutter under his palm.

‘Good dog,’ he says, before holding its head still and inserting a long needle directly into the dog’s eye. He ignores the whimpering as the dog spasms, jerks and shakes out its final death throes as the needle pierces its brain. He waits, quietly counting to himself, until the dog is still.

It is as clean a way as any to kill an animal and one he has done many times previously. Whistling to himself, he opens up the still warm corpse. The superficial femoral artery that he deliberately tied off has rerouted itself, shifting and pushing into smaller, narrower blood vessels like a tributary rerouting its way to the sea. He already knows that it works, for this is not the first time he has attempted such a thing, but he wished very much to see it again. For, if it is possible to do such a thing with a dog, might it not also be possible to save a man’s limb using a similar technique?

Later, when Edward lies in bed, he hears the echoes of the dog’s faint whimpers in his mind. It is in the name of progress, he says to himself, shaking the memory from his ears. All in the name of progress.