My head ached. I pointed down the hallway, then I said clearly: ‘I had a son in there.’

‘Sorry?’ She was gazing at me.

I cleared my throat. It hadn’t sounded right. Instead I said: ‘No sun this year.’

The words still sounded wrong. She smiled at me, puzzled, and said: ‘Ghastly, isn’t it.’ She gestured at the sky, with her free hand. ‘This time next week I’ll be in Tenerife.’

I went back to the coach. The words I’d spoken to that woman worried me; I hadn’t sounded like myself.

It was stupid, of course, to have come. It was only because I’d finished work for the day—that’s what I told myself. I strolled down to the end of the street. Too much time had passed; the whole place had gone upmarket. The Volvo squad had moved in. Years ago it was kids and radios playing; at night it was like walking through West Side Story. But the kids had grown-up and the people had gone, long ago. Today the street was silent with money. And when I got to the end I found they’d closed it off and called it an Environmental Area, so I’d have to back the blooming coach out.

When I approached the coach a man came out of a nearby house, one of the few scruffy ones, and stood looking at me. Beside him stood, on bowed legs, one of the plainest dogs I’ve ever seen.

‘Shouldn’t be here,’ he said, jerking his head up at my coach. ‘Should be down there.’ He jerked his head the other way. ‘There’s a coach park, for you lot. They’ll be relieving themselves in my bleeding hedge.’

He paused for breath. I heard his dog wheezing.

‘I’m not taking anyone to the match,’ I said. ‘Honest.’ I was going to add that it was Monday and there was no football today anyway, but he didn’t look receptive. Instead I said: ‘Actually I’m looking for a little boy.’

‘Lost a passenger?’

I shook my head and pointed to the house opposite, number 46. ‘I don’t suppose you remember a little boy lived there, when they were flats? He lived on the ground floor, with his mother, years ago.’

The man nodded. There was a silence.

I stared at him. ‘You do?’

He nodded again.

‘A little boy,’ I said, ‘and his mother was called Lesley.’

‘The lady with the hat.’

I paused. I’d forgotten about her hat. She had worn this bobble-hat, a purple knitted thing, right up to the summer. It hadn’t done a lot for her looks—with the dungarees she’d resembled a carpenter’s apprentice—but I hadn’t known her well enough to hint at that. Come to think of it, you never know women well enough to hint at it.

‘What was the little boy like?’ I asked. ‘When did they move? Do you know where they went?’

He shook his head. ‘They was flats then, but they’re not getting me out.’ He paused; his dog sneezed. ‘I’m staying put.’