Now, dwelling midway down the contact book among the Ms, Karl James Mate was a name she barely noticed from week to week any more. He was in the chapter of life she had closed by moving here. But that chapter wasn’t quite closed after all, it turned out; it had opened again tonight, violently and without warning. And Michaela was sitting in her newly renovated kitchen, past the tail-end of a drunken evening, dialling and redialling the number from her supposed past, while the man at the middle of her present sat with a whisky and an expression she was starting to find intolerable.

*

When the phone lit up for the fourth time, Karl took a deep, peevish breath. This was just as they were finally getting up a bit of steam, clear of the drab post-London stretch with the hangar-like furniture warehouses, the stadiums, all the big yellow storage units which looked like you could hide a dead body in them. The M1 nice and clear, the rain drifting off. Less than three hours now if there were no more clowns sticking their spades in the road.

Four calls, though – not texts, calls? It was time to pay some sort of attention. He pulled over on the hard shoulder, removed the phone from its base, and opened the door with great caution. He glanced worriedly at his passenger. The cars thudded by, incredibly fast, as motorway cars always seemed when you weren’t in them. But the guy appeared to be properly asleep, breathing through his mouth, his face serene.

Karl rustled his way over to where the undergrowth was thick and flopped his penis over his waistband. He wasn’t going to mess about with the buttons. Whatever joker invented the button fly, Karl would see him in Hell. He heard his stream patter against the foliage. He unlocked his phone with one hand, brought up his missed calls.

What the fuck is this? he thought.

There was a call from Australia, for a start. There was another one from … Michaela, of all people. Michaela! And then two missed calls from Hugo. And finally, a recent text from Hugo, which said that he didn’t want to alarm him, but he really did need to get in touch ASAP. With him, or with James Chiltern. James? Why were people on about James? What was the fucking beef here?