‘Ham-ish.’ He corrected her pronunciation; she’d said it with the first syllable ‘ham’ not ‘hame’. What was going on here, Karl thought – his mouth forming a sort of incredulous half-smile, the way tennis players’ did if they’d been wronged by the umpire so obviously that they felt sure the whole world could see it. That was sort of how he felt at the moment: like the victim of some conspiracy or trick. He half-expected one of these grinning pieces of work off ITV to jump out with a camera. Because how else could you explain the way the past five hours had gone? It was only a moment ago he’d been in the car park at Wembley. Nice and warm in the car, but not too warm for the incoming passenger. A little sign in his window with the DJ’s name, can of Red Bull, phone ticking over with news of jobs coming in, already imagining the tip from this one and maybe being able to take a couple of days off in midweek, go down to the coast. And now this. It was enough to make your head spin. Not just your head; everything. He felt spaced out, like in the not-quite-on-the-planet phase between hangover and recovery.

‘I mean, what are you …?’ Karl raised his voice, then dropped it again, but it might be too late. He’d heard a noise from his parked car. The geezer was awake, this was buggered. The tip was going the way of the dodo. He wished his heart would slow, but at the same time he was dimly aware that most of its exertions were in protecting him from the truth. Most of the cardio, as Michelle used to say. His heart, his brain, they were all about finding paths away from what was difficult to face. That was how he’d survived the first twenty years of his life, grafted through the next fifteen. You moved on, you found another direction.

‘Why are you talking like this is my fault?’

The woman on the other end let this fry in ten seconds of silence, and Karl could smell his own desperation. ‘All right, so what am I meant to do exactly? I tried to call him, I’ve text him, I don’t know where he is any more than you do, I—’

‘You need to call this man, Hame-ish.’ Steffi said it with a sardonic precision, like she was indulging Karl’s pronunciation, like he’d probably made it up. ‘You need to say it wasn’t James’s fault.’

‘One: it’s half past four in the morning,’ Karl began, but the voice was not going to let him get even to point number two.

‘OK,’ she said, ‘so – wait till nine o’clock and maybe he’s dead but it’s a nicer time to do a phone call?’