On Father’s Day my millionaire son walked into my freezing apartment, saw the tinned soup on the table, and asked how I was managing on the eight thousand a month his wife sends me. I told him nobody sends me anything.

I passed her that folder with my own hands and I did not look inside it first, which would have taken about four minutes.

She used it because it was in my name, open, live, and receiving post.

It was the obvious account. It was, on every piece of paper in that folder, the correct account.

Any auditor in this country would have used that account. I would have used that account.

And she told me.

In a message, in the February of 2022. Four lines, perfectly clear, with the last four digits of the account in it.

It is still on my telephone. I have now read it about four hundred times in eleven weeks.

And I replied, at the time, inside about two minutes: thank you, that’s all fine.