My brother’s exchange student. ‘Matthew might know where he is,’ I said. ‘I’ll email him, promise, I just haven’t got round to it yet.’

‘OK. Number three, Sam Gorman, the dope head.’

‘I’m friends with his sister Kate on Facebook, so I’ll contact her. I will, promise. It’s not been top of my list lately.’

‘Number four. Jed Nash from art college. Pete found a website of his work and an Instagram account.’

‘Let’s have a look then,’ I said, and got out my phone. ‘Although I don’t hold out much hope for him as we never really got together. He was more someone I admired from afar.’ I soon found his page on Instagram. There was a link to a website displaying his paintings – huge colourful canvases which showed well against the white walls of three interlinked rooms, which reminded me of the art gallery rooms I’d seen in my hypnosis session. There was only one photo of Jed, professionally taken, by the look of it. He looked great: slim, fit; he had lost most of his hair but looked very dapper.

‘Try Facebook,’ said Marcia, ‘see, there’s a link at the bottom of the website to his page.’ I did as instructed and clicked on the link.

It was easy enough to scroll down and look at his photos; he clearly had them all on public not private. He looked nice, attractive …

‘Ah …’ said Marcia, and started laughing.

I peered more closely at the photo she was looking at. ‘Ah. Yes. Oh …’ The Facebook page showed a wedding, smiling faces gathered outside a country location. Jed and his partner, a nice-looking man with a goatee beard. ‘So he’s married and gay. I always suspected as much. Well, good for him, he looks happy. So … another one off the list, I guess, though I would like to connect up just to make contact.’

I decided to get in touch with him regardless. I’d always liked Jed; maybe we could be friends after all this time.

‘Number five. Ah. Michael O’Connor. Has he been in touch since his visit?’

‘Not a dickie bird.’

‘Well he’s staying on the list, isn’t he?’

‘I guess.’

‘Joe Wilding. He wasn’t on your list but surely he’s a contender? Pete has his current address. He’s still in North London. Married with two kids.’

‘Really?’ I had heard a rumour that he’d got hitched up but I’d always imagined Joe being the eternal bachelor.

‘On or off the list?’

‘Off. Whatever we had to play out is over.’

‘Number six. Graham.’

I shrugged and Marcia didn’t pursue it.

‘And Richard Benson. Off the list?’

‘Off. Definitely.’