It was obvious that James had tidied, but there was only so much of a PR job that he could do on the fact that Michaela was in the process of moving out. That her records and books were in plastic bags in the hall, that her extensive collection of sports jackets were no longer hanging on those coat hooks. There was a whole cardboard box marked CHRISTMAS, which Michaela hadn’t had the heart to take with her, but which James also hadn’t mustered the strength to shut back in its cupboard, so it was sitting outside the bathroom as if someone was planning to deck the place out three months early. Karl handed over a bottle of wine. ‘It’s not great wine, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘The dude in the Turkish shop won’t serve booze after ten because apparently he’s invented his own version of the law, so I had to go to the … Christ.’

James had taken the bottle, unscrewed the top and drunk straight from it: the least James-like gesture Karl could imagine. He was almost as impressed as he was worried. He put an arm around James’s shoulders. James’s T-shirt was fresh on; why had he bothered to change, for Karl? Did he think after all this time Karl couldn’t handle the fact he might be a bit sweaty? Or, for that matter, a bit unhappy? But it had been less frequent, their contact, these past couple of years. Since James had left Cruiz and moved in with Michaela. Since everything had become about Michaela. In a way, there was no denying it, this outcome – her suddenly fucking off to Germany, the absconding of his rival – was what Karl had secretly hoped for, secretly even from himself. James read that thought, or had already had it. He smiled wryly, a brave loser’s smile, as they settled on the sofa together.

‘Well, I look like … like a proper idiot, now, don’t I,’ said James.

‘No, you don’t.’ Karl felt his sense of loyalty bubble up as if someone else had attacked James. ‘She does, if anything, fam. What’s she playing at, galloping off with some bloke who looks like Jürgen Klopp?’

James blinked several times, and Karl knew he had said too much.

‘How do you know what – what he looks like,’ James asked, ‘and who is Jürgen …?’