I combed my hair, left Edward’s comics in the coach and locked it up. Behind the first row of shops I found Laurel Road. It curved away from me; it was possible that some of the top-floor windows had a view of the lake. Why had I been so spineless yesterday? A woman passed, pulling along a bull terrier; it looked like Frankie Howerd. She said ‘Good morning’ to me as if I had a right to be there.

I passed a knitting shop (14), a baker’s (16) and a chemist’s (18). Which of his childhood illnesses had I missed: chicken pox, measles? Did he have asthma? I glanced inside the shop; it was reassuring, the way everyone here was middle-aged.

I turned the corner. There was nothing.

I stopped and stared. The last building this side of the road, number 20, had been sliced like cake and sealed with plastic. From then on it was open space. To be exact: car park. A large, gravelled, empty car park surrounded by newly-planted shrubs.

I leant against a shop window. My face felt hot and swollen. I had driven three hundred miles to look at a patch of gravel.

I went into the shop. It was a butcher’s. A man with a mottled face, wearing a boater, said: ‘And good morning to you.’ Behind him hung a pig, with its stomach split open.

My tongue felt thick. I pointed: ‘What happened to there?’

‘Where?’

‘They shouldn’t have done that.’

‘Something’s up?’ He moved from behind the counter. I stopped him. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I mean, why did they build a car park?’

‘You ask why?’ He gazed at me. Behind him the pig, suspended by its hind legs, stared at the floor. Its mouth was open. ‘You seen this place in season? You seen the trippers? Seen the charabancs?’ He pointed out of the window. ‘So they go and build that for the coaches. And let me tell you something: now it’s like blooming Oxford Street. My customers, these whoppers come along and they have to stand against the wall like it’s a firing squad. I ask them: any last requests?’ He guffawed. There was a brown smear on his apron. The pig, snout-down, gazed noiselessly at the floor.

I said: ‘Do you remember a sweet-shop?’

He nodded. ‘Fudge and stuff. Had to move away, didn’t they. To Spain.’

‘They’ve moved away?’

He nodded again. ‘Well, he was Armenian.’

‘Armenian?’

‘Something like that.’

I paused. ‘So they’ve gone?’ This wasn’t my lucky day. I tried once more. ‘Do you remember a woman who lived above it, with a little boy?’

He thought for a moment, wiping his big red hands on his apron. ‘In a wheelchair?’

‘No, a pushchair.’ Then I realized Edward would be too old for that.

He shook his head. ‘Wheelchair. He was disabled.’

There was a silence; I don’t know for how long.

Then I whispered: ‘What do you mean, disabled?’

‘He was all right in the head,’ said the butcher. ‘It was the rest of him. I carried him up the stairs once, he was as light as a feather.’