Ritchie had other ideas about the most important people in his life, or whom he would call, impassively, ‘the people I have no choice but to live with’. Of his sister, he had clear labels – scheming spy, greedy biscuit and crisp gobbler, professional tattletale; of his parents, he had none, but he was unforgivingly critical; of himself, he was in two minds – nothing, or a cosmonaut escaping gravity. Nothing, or a superhero flying in a fantasy world. In Ritchie Whittle’s imagination, there was no in-between man, no middle man. All about him, he saw either all or nothing. That’s all he believed existed.