He thanks the railway worker and takes his leave of the station, following the curve of the Cutting Edge sculpture in Sheaf Square as it glistens in the morning sunlight. He walks up the hill past the university buildings and crosses Arundel Gate, cutting through the Millennium Galleries and the Winter Garden and onto Surrey Street.

Outside the coffee shop, a barista stares in disgust at a young homeless guy tucked up close to the wall against the chill. The man with the scar drops a couple of quid into the lad’s Styrofoam cup.

“You shouldn’t encourage them,” the barista scolds, and disappears back inside.

At the counter, the man orders his drink while the barista pointedly continues his conversation with a colleague, extolling the merits of his one-man war on destitution.

“I’ve a good mind to call the police,” the barista says and holds a Sharpie poised against a cup. “What name is it?” he asks distractedly.

“Tyler,” says the man with the scar. “Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler.”

The barista manages a sick smile and hurries away to steam some milk.

•   •   •

Dave Carver arrives at the Botanical Gardens early that morning, just as he always does. His official shift starts at ten but he likes to get here earlier. Sometimes he’s even here before the council workers who open the gates, and he has to wait patiently until they arrive.

He likes to grab a takeaway coffee—black, filter—from one of the High Street chains that have sprung up like mushrooms along Ecclesall Road. He remembers a time when there were far fewer coffee shops in Sheffield, when people made do with what they had at home. Now, you can’t move for cardboard cups and the smell of roasted coffee beans. He’s filled with disdain for these capitalist multinationals, enslaving the downtrodden poor of South America so some middle-class student can part with £3.50 of Daddy’s money for a syrupy concoction that costs the purveyor no more than eight pence a cup. It’s obscene and he despises himself each time he goes into one of these places. But he goes anyway, every week. Because she loved them so much.

Once through the entrance to the Gardens he wanders up the steep path that leads to the greenhouse with the signing-in book. Then he tracks right, never left—he stays clear of that side of the Gardens if he can—and turns right again into the small walled area they call the Marnock Garden.

He finds it peaceful here, a small enclave within the busy, breath-taking city, like the eye at the center of a storm. Here he will sit, until the start of his shift, on a wooden bench with a small brass plaque. Sometimes he gets so lost in memory he ends up late for work. So often in fact that he has a reputation for tardiness and poor timekeeping among the other volunteers. It has become a running joke. Speedy Dave. So early, he makes himself late.