Tucked into the bottom corner, he finds the apple he purloined from the basin on the drainer as he fled through the back door. He puts the knapsack back together and rises from his haunches before shouldering it once again. As he starts to walk, he sinks his teeth into the apple’s crisp flesh. His mouth fizzes under its sting – a cooking apple, he realises immediately. Its sourness makes him flinch, but he is parched and therefore grateful for its harsh juice. He eats it down to the core.

He has no idea where he is or where he is going. He left his home with no other thought than to run – to flee while he still could. It seemed a good enough plan at the time. As he draws in a deep lungful of air, he reminds himself it is still a good plan. He knows all too well what would have happened if he had stayed; what would happen if he ever went back.

He finds himself on the outskirts of a village almost before he realises it. The fields give way to banked verdant verges bearing a plumage of bracken and topped with trees. Through laden canopies that whisper at his arrival, he spies glimpses of red brick and grey flint. The lane he is on tunnels downwards and, as he rounds the corner, the village blooms before him, houses spreading down into the broad-bottomed valley before rising up to populate the foothills in the distance. His pulse quickens.

It is still early and for the most part all is quiet. An upstairs window in a quaint terraced row rises on its sash as he walks past. The noise catches his attention and he notices a shadow fall back from the windowpane. Somewhere, a dog begins to bark, another soon joining it. He shifts his knapsack to his other shoulder and walks on, ignoring the grit biting through the worn soles of his boots.

The lane winds its way further into the village. A humped bridge takes him across a single-gauge train track and along it he sees a small station, its solitary platform deserted. He carries on and soon a row of shops appears, flanking the road: a butcher’s with its blinds drawn low and the canopy rolled back against its red-brick wall; a drapery with a handwritten advert for dressmaking lessons for 2/6d a week displayed in its window; a sweetshop; a hardware store; a greengrocer’s and general provision.

Soon the main street curves around a grey stone church surrounded by a neatly kept graveyard that sides onto a meadow. Beyond it he discovers two more shops: a tobacconist, and a bakery that exudes the delicious smell of warm bread, though it has yet to open. His stomach gripes, but he walks on.