The autumn light fell across the dry lawn and the old wooden bench where Dad used to sit every afternoon with his tea.

All those months, when he told me he couldn’t find his bank statements in the drawer, I had assumed his mind was slipping.

I had patted his hand and told him not to worry about the missing papers.

He hadn’t been slipping at all.

He had been sitting in his armchair in the dark, watching his own son clear out his life’s work while he quietly gathered evidence with Samuel and the bank.

He had taken those two capacity tests at the clinic not because the doctor insisted, but because he knew Julian would claim he was confused when the legal confrontation came.