‘It’s nice here, isn’t it?’ He asked the question out loud, but not so his father could hear. He’d been asking the selfsame thing ever since they’d moved Dad out of the semi-detached house in Morningside. At first, it had been rhetorical; he wasn’t so sure now. The family home had needed to be cleared. Some of the furniture was in Fox’s garage. His attic was full of boxes of photographs and other mementoes, the majority of which meant little or nothing to him. For a time, he would bring some with him when he visited, but they upset his father if he couldn’t place them. Names he felt he should have known had been wiped from his memory. Items had lost their significance. Tears would well in the old boy’s eyes.

‘Want to do anything?’ Fox asked, seating himself on the edge of the bed again.

‘Not really.’

‘Watch TV? Cup of tea maybe?’

‘I’m all right.’ Mitch Fox suddenly fixed his son with a look. ‘You’re all right, too, aren’t you?’

‘Never better.’

‘Doing well at work?’

‘Revered and respected by all who know me.’

‘Got a girlfriend?’

‘Not at the moment.’

‘How long is it since you divorced…?’ The eyebrows knitted again. ‘Her name’s on the tip of my…’

‘Elaine – and she’s ancient history, Dad.’

Mitch Fox nodded and was thoughtful for a moment. ‘You’ve got to be careful, you know.’

‘I know.’

‘Machinery… it’s not to be trusted.’

‘I don’t work with machinery, Dad.’

‘But all the same…’

Malcolm Fox pretended to be checking his phone again. ‘I can look after myself,’ he assured his father. ‘Don’t you worry about me.’

‘Tell Jude to come and see me,’ Mitch Fox said. ‘She needs to be more careful on those stairs of hers…’

Malcolm Fox looked up from his phone. ‘I’ll tell her,’ he said.

‘What’s this Dad tells me about stairs?’

Fox was outside, standing beside his car. It was a silver Volvo S60 with three thousand miles on the clock. His sister had picked up after half a dozen rings, just as he’d been about to end the call.