Logan is hiding behind the noodles. Merriweather is idling at the sprouting mung beans. For the second time in three years they are close both to each other and to pasta, but this time it is no accident. The independent health food shop has angled aisles and backless shelves, perfect for peeping. Logan has two client reports to prepare, but yet another sleepless night in his driveway has wired him for only one task. He will confront Merriweather. The timing will be perfect. It is not yet perfect.

He spotted Merriweather on Sawyer Street. To avoid being seen, he slipped into a vaping outlet; watching his target, sideways, through the window. He placed his thumb on the sensor below the picture of the latest model and a black-and-silver e-cig dropped out of the chute. There was no one to ask how to operate the thing; a ten-second video instruction played on the wall. Logan took his first drag in the doorway, savouring the hit. He watched Merriweather enter the health food shop.

Now they are yards apart, and the moment is almost upon him. He must be calm. He must prepare what he’s going to say. He’s still rehearsing it under his breath when a woman asks him where the falafel is.

I don’t work here, he says, offended.

The woman considers his dishevelment, the crushed suit.

No, she says, all right, but you were moving things around.

They were in the wrong place, he says, staring at her in a deliberately unhinged way until she shakes her head and moves off. He peers again through the hole he made, which no longer frames the indecisive Merriweather. Where is the man? Logan shifts the rice noodles and the egg noodles and the thread noodles, slinking the hole along the row like the gap in a nine-square puzzle. Not a Merriweather in sight.

Finlay.

The voice is behind him. Logan startles, straightens himself, and turns around slowly.

Simon.

Merriweather’s face is troubled. Whether guilt is a component of that trouble, Logan cannot tell. The creased forehead could simply be a reaction to Logan’s dishevelment, the coffee-pumped eyes which Logan spots over his old friend’s shoulder as ghostly reflections on the organic ice-cream cabinet. Logan feels panic fluttering in his chest.

What are you doing here? he asks. (Good thinking, he tells himself. Challenge him before he can challenge you.)

Shopping? says Merriweather, his uncertainty about Logan’s motives transferred onto himself with habitual politeness.

Good, good, says Logan, struggling to find solid ground. Find anything nutritious?

Rye soda bread, says Merriweather, lifting it in his basket as proof. Look, Finlay, are you…

What?

Are you spying on me?

Logan fluffs up indignantly.

What can you mean?

You were peering through the shelves.

I was peering at the shelves. Logan pats non-existent glasses in his breast pocket. Where are they, actually? Eyesight not what it was. Why would I be spying on you?