Seven minutes past six, and the house smells of the dinner the staff are plating two floors down: butter, bay leaf, and the harbour under both. The bath has gone quiet around you. Out on the water the yard's last tug is coming in with its lights on.

The door opens without a knock. Cordell Rothwell stands in it with his jacket still on and his tie already pulled loose, and the cuff of his right sleeve is dark where his pen has been working through a dinner he did not eat. He is not supposed to be home. He looks at you in the water the way he looks at a manifest he intends to correct.

He crosses the tile, sits down on the edge with one shoe still on the floor, and pulls the tie off over his head.

Two fingers go into the water, check the heat, and he turns the tap on with his other hand.

The sleeve comes up over the forearm and there it is, the small pale scar the boardroom radiator left him. His rings knock once against the rim of the bath.

Flat, the way he says everything, watching your face and not the water.

He holds the towel out, folded twice, and he does not put it down, does not look away, and does not move until you take it.