He clunked his keys into the front door of his flat. The door was heavy and fireproofed and it made noises like an old man. Michael dumped his briefcase on the hall table and snapped on the living-room light.

The Cherub was sitting on the sofa.

'Bloody hell!' exclaimed Michael, and stumbled backwards. 'What are you doing here?'

Tony sat with both hands placed on his knees. 'I don't know,' he said in a mild voice.

'How did you get in!' The central light was bare and bleak.

'I don't know,' Tony said. He still hadn't moved.

The scaffolding, thought Michael. He climbed up the bloody scaffolding. 'Get out of here!' Michael shouted.

The eyes narrowed and the head tilted sideways.

And then, Oh God, he was gone. The air roiled, as if from tarmac on a hot day. It poured into the space Tony had suddenly vacated. There was no imprint left on the cushions.

The Cherub simply disappeared. Not even a flutter of wings.

Michael stood and stared. He kept staring at the sofa. What had happened was not possible. Or rather it made a host of other things suddenly possible: magic, madness, ghosts.

Michael sat down with a bump and slowly unwound his scarf. He stood up and poured himself a whiskey, swirling it around in the glass and inspecting it, yellow and toxic. Whiskey had destroyed his father.

In a funny kind of way, it felt as if Tony was his father's ghost come back to haunt him.

Michael took a swig and then sat down with his notebook and Pilot pencil to answer every question except the most important.

Who indeed is Michael?

In a very few photographs, Michael was beautiful.

Most photographs of him were short-circuited by a grimace of embarrassment or a dazzled nervous grin that gave him the teeth of a rodent. If someone short stood next to him, Michael would stoop and twist and force himself lower.