He said it the way he said everything, polite and cold, and that was what made it so terrifying.

He looked slowly around at my home, at the photographs on the walls, at everything I had, and he made me understand exactly what he was promising to take.”

My mother had sunk into a chair, her hand pressed hard over her mouth.

“Richard,” she breathed, “you knew?

All this time, you knew he’d been here, you knew what Vale said?” My father bowed his head.

“He was here the night before,” he wept.