‘I think she feels like she failed you,’ I said to Francis. I said it without inflection, a simple slender shard of information designed to pierce him to his core. After weeks of his impenetrable intoxication, I found myself relishing the novelty of being able to cause him hurt with the sacrifices we had made. It was easy work, and satisfying, like biting down on a wobbly tooth. ‘She felt it was her job to protect you. Now you’ve given that job to someone else, she knows she failed.’

Francis winced, and looked at his feet. I felt his pain, hated myself for being the cause, but I felt I was getting back some control over myself by hurting him.

‘I know I messed up, James, but there’s something you don’t know. I did something, something that was just for you and Jessica. I hope that one day it will be enough for you to forgive me.’

All the lordly authority was gone from that voice. The whining strains, the need for approval had grown, swelling out of the other tones with cancerous strength. I decided to ignore his coded reference; I knew him too well to fall for a hint of intrigue.

‘I can’t forgive you, Francis,’ I said, ‘I’d have to be angry with you for that. The truth is I don’t feel much of anything right now. I used to think feeling was infinite, that if things kept happening you kept reacting to them. But now I know different. It’s too tiring, sooner or later you have to let it go or die of exhaustion. I’ve let it go. I don’t care what you did or didn’t do. It’s better than forgiveness, it’s obliteration, as if nothing ever happened. Take it as a gift. I have.’

That was the last day I saw Francis. I went back inside. When I left the library at seven I walked down the corridor that ran along the courtyard. He was still sitting there, a black figure perched like a raven on the wooden bench, his overcoat hanging down like wings at his skinny flanks.

Francis hanged himself five days later in rehab. He used a tie that he had bought from Thomas Pink with Jessica from the shop on Sloane Street. It was one of the few personal items he was allowed to take in with him. I found out because one of the people in his therapy group took a photograph of him before the authorities discovered the body, and it wound up on the internet.