Mostly, what we do is the same old, same old. We go to the same place of work; do the same things; talk to the same people. We drive home the same way; eat the same thing for dinner; click on the same sites on our phones; watch the same things on TV. Go to bed at the same time and start again. Ad infinitum. I had been doing the same old for a long time.

But now it was going to change.

I didn’t answer, because I knew he was listening behind the door. Does the mouse tell the cat his intentions? Because I knew this was now the start of an age-old game.

My son had always liked hunting. At fourteen, his school friend introduced him to the world of snares and rabbiting and although I refused to allow him to have a ferret, he bought one anyway; it fidgeted up and down his sleeves and was the first and only thing I ever saw him show public affection for – until he picked Jack up from school, that is. But I think he killed the ferret, because one day I noticed the hutch he kept it in was empty. ‘Where’s Arrow?’ I’d asked him.

‘Who?’ He looked up from his computer game.

‘Arrow, your ferret.’

He gave a little half-shrug, his eyes cool blue, innocent. ‘Got out. Gone.’

By then, I’d started feeding Arrow because Jack often forgot. I’d learnt to ignore Arrow’s lithe, snake-like body built for killing and instead, enjoyed his black, bright eyes and smoothing his fur. He was cute and smart too – I could hide a raisin behind my ear as bait and he would come and search it out, wet-nosed and quick. ‘Gone since when? I saw him yesterday.’

He ignored me, until I raised my voice in an I’m-not-going-away-until-you-bother-to-answer-me tone and then he gave another half-shrug. ‘This morning. When you were out at work.’

I thought of Winston then, lovely Winston whose memory I had buried deep. I remembered his brown eyes and it seemed as if Winston and Arrow were friends, although by this time, my son was fifteen and Winston had been dead a decade.

‘Have you looked for him?’ I knew he hadn’t; I could achingly see what his lack of interest meant, but I was annoyed, not just for Arrow who might be dead somewhere or worse, but what it meant about my child – what I already knew. I bugged him then, asking about Arrow until he shouted at me that he didn’t ‘fucking care, so why don’t you get lost?’ and I felt better to hear the truth, because standing there, watching him engrossed in his stupid game just made me sick. I finally faced up to what I’d always known but had run from: I finally accepted that I’d raised a psychopath.

Like grandfather, like grandson.

Oh, Daddy dear, you would be so proud.