He had sandwiched his favourite texts – poems and novels he wished that he could read for the first time – between bookends decorated with the cut-outs of a phoenix that Mr Barson, his carpentry teacher, had taught him to saw from a sheet of plywood. After selecting and rejecting Borges’s Labyrinths, Dyer took out Basil Bunting’s Collected Poems and sat by the French window and started to read. He had to remind himself: You haven’t betrayed Marvar. If Updark hauls you in again and wants you to explain your notes, simply refuse to answer. Point out that they were acquired illegally, and journalists never reveal their sources – a cardinal rule which applies to ex-journalists too.

A fly was on his arm. He flicked it off and it settled on his right ear. He brushed it away again. After a while, his breathing returned to normal.

At 3.30 p.m. Dyer got into his car and drove to the Phoenix.

He felt a jolt of relief to see his son beneath the school clock.

Leandro crouched over his bicycle, helmet on, fiddling with the lock.

‘Hi, Dad. What are you doing here?’ in a puzzled voice, standing up.

‘I have decided,’ said Dyer, ‘to give you a lift home.’

‘What about my bike?’

‘You can ride it back tomorrow.’

‘All right,’ said Leandro, and he removed his satchel from the basket, and started unbuckling his helmet. ‘Just let me lock it up.’

Dyer made pasta for dinner.

Five minutes into the meal, Leandro raised his head. ‘Dad, what are we doing for exeat?’

A quarter of his class had joined the Phoenix skiing trip to Davos at half-term. While Leandro had stayed in Jericho and played Fifa 18, one boy flew to Perth – and two girls to Hong Kong. Leandro was still trying to unscramble the mixed messages of being at a school with friends whose parents could afford to send them at regular intervals to distant locations, and having a father who was so constrained financially that not once since their arrival in Oxford had Dyer taken Leandro back to Rio.

Dyer mumbled something foolish, to the effect that he hadn’t yet made a plan.

The truth was, Dyer was going fast through Vivien’s legacy. The school fees went up every term. The latest bill had forced Dyer to ask himself if the upheaval from Joaquim Nabuco to St Barnabas Street had been worth it. Much of what Leandro was being taught seemed to be beside the point. What was he gaining at the Phoenix that he couldn’t have acquired in Rio? A confidence, a background history, a knowledge of half a dozen poems and hymns, a group of friends who might help each other later on (or not)?

Or had Dyer uprooted his son to Oxford to repair a rip in his own fabric?