He turns to me and raises his eyebrows. I shake my head, bile rising in my throat. I sense that his story is nearly over and fear for what will come then.

‘He said that what happened to Mum was my fault. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My mum had killed herself because of depression, not because of me. If anyone pushed her to it, it was him – he was the one who took her from everything she loved. And my father, the man beloved by kids across the world, leaned across and hissed that he didn’t blame her for feeling low with me as her son. That I clearly wasn’t right in the head either. Then …’

He pauses and wipes his eyes.

‘He said that he wished I could be the son I was supposed to be, but that I was incapable. That I was such a disappointment he’d had to invent another boy to replace me.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, my mind whirring with images of Geoffrey, of his poor dead wife and lonely son.

‘That was the final straw,’ he says, pressing his fist to the glass. ‘I ran at him then, but I lost my footing and fell on the open flame of the torch. As you can see, the scars have never healed.’

He steps away from the window and suddenly the atmosphere shifts. His face darkens and he walks towards me.

‘I’m what our society would refer to as a loser, Vanessa. I’ve never had a proper job or a proper relationship, never bought a house or started a family. And it all stems from what happened that night; he baited me and I was marked for ever as the failure I am. I lost the use of my hand for a while and needed extensive skin grafts on my face. I was traumatized and needed help but my father’s solution was to hide me away, pretend I didn’t exist. He never mentioned me to the world again. So I set up home in the rooms along this corridor and we left each other alone. But then this year he announced he was selling up and using the proceeds to travel the world. The old bastard had landed on his feet yet again, no matter what the cost to anyone else, even those he was supposed to love. And he has never been punished for what he did to my mother or for what he did to me. For ruining both our lives, first with those books and then by doing this.’

He grabs my hand and runs it along the mottled scar.