“Hullo, dear,” she trilled, offering up her cheek for a kiss. Dan obliged. “My word, hasn’t it got cold all of a sudden? What’s happened to the Indian summer that nice Mr. Fish promised us on the telly?” She reached up and gave the lapel of his leather jacket a shake. “And look at you without a jersey. You may think you look sexy in that thing, but it’s not going to keep out the chill.”

“I’m fine, Mum,” Dan replied, wrestling his jacket from her grip. “In fact, I’m feeling quite hot.” For heaven’s sakes, Dan thought to himself, nearly forty-one years old and you’re still rising to her overprotective quips.

“Oh, well, if you say so,” his mother sighed as she reversed her bottom onto the car seat and pulled her raincoat around her. Shutting the door more carefully than usual, Dan walked around to the other side of the car and got in.

“My word, this is very nice,” his mother cooed as she rubbed a hand along the wood veneer finish of the dashboard. “Very plush indeed. Is it new?”

“Is what new?” Dan asked, clipping in his seat belt.

“The car.”

“Mum, it’s fifteen years old,” Dan replied, wondering how his mother could have possibly missed the fact that the interior of the car looked as if it had been used for carting livestock at some time in its past.

“Well, you wouldn’t think it, would you?” She nosed the fetid air in the car and her mouth pursed with disgust. “Have you been smoking?” she asked tartly.

“No, I haven’t. It must have been the last owner.”

Battersea Gran sucked her teeth. “Probably died of lung cancer. Why else would anyone want to get rid of a nice car like this?”

“Right, Mum. Pull over your seat belt and I’ll do it up for you.”

Dan clipped in the belt and started the car on the third time of asking. He executed a five-point turn in the middle of the narrow street, much to the annoyance of a taxi driver and a motorcyclist who were forced to wait while he carried out the manoeuvre. “Okay, then,” he said, holding up a hand in apology and accelerating the car towards Battersea Park Road, “Clapham next stop.”

“I think that I should go back to the flat first, dear.”

“Do you really need to? It’s just that I’ve left the roast in the oven and the girls won’t have the sense to take a look at it.”

“Nature calls, I’m afraid. I don’t think that I’d make it to Haleridge Road.”

“Wasn’t there a loo in the church?”

“Oh, yes, but I wouldn’t dream of using that one.”

“Why not?”

“Because . . . well, you know . . . going to the toilet in church. Just doesn’t seem right.”

“Mum, even Jesus had to have a pee sometimes.”