‘Ask my ex-wife, then. Or that pathetic excuse for a man she’s now chosen to live with. You could even try my son. How about that? When he’s old enough to talk all he’ll parrot is how Daddy is a filthy, deviant homosexual—’

‘You’re gay? As if that could possibly be a dirty little secret in this day and age. Are you honestly trying to compare—?’

‘There is no world in which I would ever equate hurting the people you love the most by accepting an inescapable fact about your soul with exploitative, criminal behaviour of the most horrific kind.’

In the nanosecond our eyes meet I see the shadows of years of confusion and hurt before he can continue.

‘But even now, in this allegedly progressive and accepting society of ours, I can’t talk openly at work – not that everyone doesn’t know, or even care particularly. I still have to do my job in places where the best outcome men who love other men can hope for is being thrown off a building. There are still far more people walking up and down on this pavement, right here and right now, who if asked, would say I should be stoned to death, rather than welcome me with open arms as I edge out of the fucking closet. What I’m saying, Marie, is that I know what it is to hide. I know what it does to your insides. We don’t have to have been through identical circumstances to have empathy for each other – there are certain emotions that are universal. I know what it is to live in terror of accepting every last bit of yourself, and feeling that the only person from whom you could possibly expect unconditional 242love is dead, or as good as. But what I also know, from bitter experience, is the only way out of it is to learn how to trust again.’

I turn, looking at him like we’re the only two people in the street, in the world, as if the crowds churning around us are just invisible currents of air.

‘So who is it?’ I watch his face contract as he licks his lips.

‘You have to promise—’

‘I’m not promising anything.’

‘You have to promise to use it, Marie. Or else this ends here. I’m not telling you, and you’re on your own. I mean it.’ He bears down on me. ‘It will be the first and only time I ever betray a source. And I’m doing it to save your life. That’s the only reason I’d ever do it. Be under no illusions about how high this goes. I need to know you understand me.’

‘Who is it?’ The faintest edge of street noise laps at me, in, out, in, out.

‘Do you understand? Promise me, Marie. No story is worth dying for.’