‘You faked your death, didn’t you? That summer in Italy. The clothes left on the beach. It was very convincing. But why did you do that, James?’

He closed his eyes and released some breath that sounded as if it had been trapped for a long time. When he opened his eyes I saw the ancient pain inside the man.

‘Starting again?’ I said. ‘A clean slate? Was that it? And who knew? Your sister here. How many of your friends? All of them?’

‘None of them.’

‘Hugo Buck knew.’

‘No.’

‘He had two of your paintings on the wall of his home. One by James Sutcliffe. And another by Edward Duncan.’

He looked shocked.

‘I’m not interested in exposing you,’ I said. ‘Unless you’ve done something wrong. Unless you’ve broken the law. Unless you’ve hurt someone. Is that what you did, James?’

And at last there was panic in his eyes.

‘I know how you got away with your disappearing act,’ I said. ‘They believed you because you were suffering from depression. I saw what you were on. Prozac. Luvox. Lustral. Cipralex. That’s quite a cocktail of happy pills, James. But what were you depressed about? What happened at that school?’

He took a deep breath. Let it out.

‘When you’re young, you try things,’ he said. ‘You experiment. You’re a sponge. You soak it up – all of it, any of it. Dear Mr Waugh – he was more than just a House Master. He was our friend. And he taught us about so many things. Wonderful things. Artists. Writers.’ A beat. ‘To get beyond the self. “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is – infinite.” Who doesn’t want to get beyond their sad, shoddy little self at sixteen? “To be shaken out of the rut of ordinary perception.” Sacramental visions. Experimentation.’

‘Drugs.’

A short laugh.

‘Drugs? My God. Drugs were just the start.’

‘Keep talking, James,’ I said.

I could see that he remembered it all now, that it was almost a relief to talk about it.

‘There was a girl,’ he said.

There was silence in the room.

‘There was a girl,’ I said.

‘James?’ his sister said. ‘I’m going to call Mother. And Mother is going to call Burke. Do you remember Peter Burke? The lawyer, darling. Don’t say anything else to these people.’

‘It was meant to be . . . not fun,’ he continued. ‘An experiment. Pushing the boundaries of experience.’

He was less certain of himself now.

I glimpsed the pale bracelet of self-harm on his wrists, as wide as a sweatband and as white as a dead fish.

He tugged at his shirtsleeves, knowing what I had seen.

‘Who was the girl?’ I said. ‘What was her name? Where did you find her?’

‘How many of you?’ Wren added.

‘Six of us,’ he said. ‘No – seven. And she was nice.’

‘She was nice?’ Wren said.