Then what? Placing myself back in the moment, I imagine tearing through brambles, emerging into the daylight and pounding barefoot across Parliament Hill, past the tennis courts, straight across the zebra crossing at Swain’s Lane, narrowly avoiding a white van which blasted its horn as I darted between the sparse early morning traffic; Highgate Road rushes past in a blur; I was moving as though running for my life. My legs had not stopped until I reached Camden Town, met by a sea of strangled faces, their features blurred. Finally, I picture my hands, trembling as I reach into my pocket and pull out my key.

But what about him: what had he done? How does he know where I work?

The thought causes me to shiver.

He can’t have followed me, not least because I would have noticed a man pursuing me through the streets at such breakneck speed, but also because I went straight home. If he knew where I lived, then why wouldn’t he have sent the shoes to the flat? And yet, the brick: that had happened the very same night. Perhaps Oscar was right, perhaps the two things were unconnected. But fuck Oscar and his patronising assumptions. Besides, everyone knows there’s no such thing as coincidence.

And then it hits me. The purse. Amongst all the crap – the bar receipts, the outdated loyalty cards – was my business card. Five of them, each a little creased, with my name on the front: job title and work address.

For a moment, the voice of reason raises its head. Perhaps then it was a dog walker who returned my shoes to the office, or a jogger? Someone simply found my purse and shoes and had the courtesy to send them back to me. Silly girl, the voice says. The voice of the nurses and doctors, the voice of someone whose mouth was pursed in a knowing smile, one leg pressed over the other.

Except, where was the purse? The only thing that could have given away my identity was nowhere to be seen. If more evidence were needed, there was no note. Encountering local heroes is a hazard of the job when you’re a reporter, and I’ve learnt a bit about the kind of people who get off on this kind of community spirit. Nine times out of ten, they want their picture taken and paraded in the local rag. It isn’t so much about doing good things as about being seen to be doing them.