And, because she clearly wasn’t going to offer me a lift either, I turned tail and trudged off. I went down the hill toward the market square. If The Sun hadn’t gone gastro, I’d have gone for a pint or eight. Instead, I took a room over the Castle & Ball, where I had a shower and lay down on the bed. But I couldn’t sleep. I was burning. The anger was like petrol, and I lay there, sipping on it, fueling the fire, so that it grew, obliterating the hurt. Long ago, I had felt like this almost all the time. Anger had been my daily bread, but I had been capable of joy too. When I had shut one out, I had excluded the other.

I replayed Peter’s message. The bells, distant as they were, belonged to Saint Helen’s. I recognized them, as Peter had known I would, and that was why he had told me not to come here. He was here, or had been, I was sure of it. But if he wasn’t with his parents, where else could he be? With whom? And whichever way I looked at it, I could only think of one name.

Marcus was married. He had a blond wife, Lisa, and two kids, a boy and a girl. Meeting Marcus was something I wanted to avoid, but I had wanted to see him, and as soon as technology made it possible, the spying began. I knew roughly where he lived, and with whom. I’d scrutinized his wedding pictures so often, I’m surprised they didn’t feel me there on the day, an invisible presence hanging over them like a giant, hungry eye.

His son made his debut as a red-faced lump; within a few months he was a gap-toothed smiler in a Fireman Sam onesie. Marcus’s daughter was the image of him. In the latest photo, she was clutching a cuddly pink pig, her little face a rictus of delight. There was a lovely one from last summer of them all together at a barbecue. Lisa had the boy on her lap. She had a solid body, a mum’s body. Marcus was wearing a faded red T-shirt, paint-spattered shorts, and wielding tongs over the coals. Less hair, more muscle, a working man’s tan. His eyes were narrowed against the smoke, but he was smiling. The little girl was standing between her parents, ketchup spread over her face like war paint. At her feet, the pig lay in a heap like a slaughtered foe.