Dead, it said. Dad’s dead.

Saul’s knees buckled. The men behind him held him upright, but hewas utterly weak in their arms. He moaned.

‘Where’s my dad?’ he pleaded.

The light outside was the colour of the clouds. Blue strobesswirled on a mass of police cars, staining the drab buildings. Thefrozen air cleared Saul’s head. He tugged desperately at the armsholding him as he struggled to see over the hedges that ringedTerragon Mansions. He saw faces staring down from the hole that washis father’s window. He saw the glint of a million splinters of glasscovering the dying grass. He saw a mass of uniformed police frozen ina threatening diorama. All their faces were turned to him. One held aroll of tape covered in crime scene warnings, a tape he wasstretching around stakes in the ground, circumscribing a piece of theearth. Inside the chosen area he saw one man kneeling before a darkshape on the lawn. The man was staring at him like all the others.His body obscured the untidy thing. Saul was swept past before hecould see any more.

He was pushed into one of the cars, lightheaded now, hardly ableto feel a thing. His breath came very fast. Somewhere along the linehandcuffs had been snapped onto his wrists. He shouted again at themen in front, but they ignored him.

The streets rolled by.

They put him in a cell, gave him a cup of tea and warmer clothes:a grey cardigan and corduroy trousers that stank of alcohol. Saul sathuddled in a stranger’s clothes. He waited for a long time.

He lay on the bed, draped the thin blanket around him.

Sometimes he heard the voice inside him. Suicide, it said. Dad’scommitted suicide.

Sometimes he would argue with it. It was a ridiculous idea,something his father could never do. Then it would convince him andhe might start to hyperventilate, to panic. He closed his ears to it.He kept it quiet.

He would not listen to rumours, even if they came from insidehimself.

No one had told him why he was there. Whenever footsteps went byoutside he would shout, sometimes swearing, demanding to know whatwas happening. Sometimes the footsteps would stop and the grillewould be lifted on the door. ‘We’re sorry for the delay,’ a voicewould say. ‘We’ll be with you as soon as we can,’ or ‘Shut the fuckup.’

‘You can’t keep me here,’ he yelled at one point. ‘What’s goingon?’ His voice echoed around empty corridors.

Saul sat on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

A fine network of cracks spread out from one corner. Saul followedthem with his eyes, allowing himself to be mesmerized.

Why are you here? the voice inside whispered to him nervously. Whydo they want you? Why won’t they speak to you?

Saul sat and stared at the cracks and ignored the voice.

After a long time he heard the key in the lock. Two uniformedpolicemen entered, followed by the thin man Saul had seen in hisfather’s flat. The man was dressed in the same brown suit and uglytan raincoat. He stared at Saul, who returned his gaze from beneaththe dirty blanket, forlorn and pathetic and aggressive. When the thinman spoke his voice was much softer than Saul would haveimagined.

‘Mr Garamond,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that yourfather is dead.’

Saul gazed at him. That much was obvious surely, he felt likeshouting, but tears stopped him. He tried to speak through hisstreaming eyes and nose, but could issue nothing but a sob. He weptnoisily for a minute, then struggled to control himself. He sniffedback tears like a baby and wiped his snotty nose on his sleeve. Thethree policemen stood and watched him impassively until he hadcontrolled himself a little more.

‘What’s going on?’ he croaked.

‘I was hoping you might be able to tell us that, Saul,’ said thethin man. His voice remained quite impassive. ‘I’m DetectiveInspector Crowley, Saul. Now, I’m going to ask you a few questions…’

‘What happened to Dad?’ Saul interrupted. There was a pause.

‘He fell from the window, Saul,’ Crowley said. ‘It’s a long wayup. I don’t think he suffered any.’ There was a pause. ‘Did you notrealize what had happened to your dad, Saul?’

`I thought maybe something… I saw in the garden… Why am Ihere? Saul was shaking.

Crowley pursed his lips and moved a little closer. 'Well, Saul,first let me apologize for how long you’ve been waiting. It’s beenvery hectic out here. I had hoped someone might come and take care ofyou, but it seems no one has. I’m sorry about that. I’ll be having afew words.

‘As to why you’re here, well, it was all a bit confused backthere. We get a call from a neighbour saying there’s someone lyingout front of the building, we go in, there you are, we don’t know whoyou are… you can see how it all gets out of hand. Anyway, you’rehere, long and short of it, in the hope that you can tell us yourside of the story.’

Saul stared at Crowley. ‘My side?’ he shouted. ‘My side of what?I’ve got home and my dad’s…’

Crowley shushed him, his hands up, placating, nodding.

‘I know, I know, Saul. We’ve just got to understand what happened.I want you to come with me.’ He gave a sad little smile as he saidthis. He looked down at Saul sitting on the bed; dirty, smelly, instrange clothes, confused, pugnacious, tear-stained and orphaned.Crowley’s face creased with what looked like concern.

‘I want to ask you some questions.’

Once, when he was three, Saul was sitting on his father’sshoulders, coming home from the park. They had passed a group ofworkmen repairing a road, and Saul had tangled his hands in hisfather’s hair and leaned over and gazed at the bubbling pot of tarhis father pointed out: the pot heating on the van, and the big metalstick they used to stir it. His nose was filled with the thick smellof tar, and as Saul gazed into the simmering glop he remembered thewitch’s cauldron in Hansel and Gretel and he was seized with thesudden terror that he would fall into the tar and be cooked alive.And Saul had squirmed backwards and his father had stopped and askedhim what was the matter. When he understood he had taken Saul off hisshoulders and walked with him over to the workmen, who had leaned ontheir shovels and grinned quizzically at the anxious child. Saul’sfather had leaned down and whispered encouragement into his ear, andSaul had asked the men what the tar was. The men had told him abouthow they would spread it thin and put it on the road, and they hadstirred it for him as his father held him. He did not fall in. And hewas still afraid, but not as much as he had been, and he knew why hisfather had made him find out about the tar, and he had beenbrave.

A mug of milky tea coagulated slowly in front of him. Abored-looking constable stood by the door of the bare room. Arhythmic metallic wheeze issued from the tape-recorder on the table.Crowley sat opposite him, his arms folded, his face impassive. ‘Tellme about your father.’

Saul’s father had been racked with a desperate embarrassmentwhenever his son came home with girls. It was very important to himthat he should not seem distant or old-fashioned, and in a ghastlymiscalculation he had tried to put Saul’s guests at their ease. Hewas terrified that he would say the wrong thing. The struggle not tobolt for his own room stiffened him. He would stand uneasily in thedoorway, a grim smile clamped to his face, his voice firm and seriousas he asked the terrified fifteen-year-olds what they were doing atschool and whether they enjoyed it. Saul would gaze at his father andwill him to leave. He would stare furiously at the floor as hisfather stolidly discussed the weather and GCSE English.

‘I’ve heard that sometimes you argued. Is that true, Saul? Tell meabout that.’

When Saul was ten, the time he liked most was in the mornings.Saul’s father left for work on the railways early, and Saul had halfan hour to himself in the flat. He would wander around and stare atthe titles of the books his father left lying on all the surfaces:books about money and politics and history. His father would alwayspay close attention to what Saul was doing in history at school,asking what the teachers had said. He would lean over his chair,urging Saul not to believe everything his history teacher told him.He would thrust books at his son, stare at them, become distracted,take them back, flick through the pages, murmur that Saul was perhapstoo young. He would ask his son what he thought about the issues theydiscussed. He took Saul’s opinions very seriously. Sometimes thesediscussions bored Saul. More often they made him feel uneasy at thesudden welter of ideas, but inspired.