‘It’s Leo,’ I say. I tell her about my trip to Bodmin. ‘He didn’t know me. It was like he wasn’t a ghost any more. He’d changed into one of the people who are just the avatars of themselves in my day. I think … well, I think something’s changed with him and his death. I’m so sorry to charge in and find you like this. I’m feeling a bit … wobbly. I only know two other people like me, and one of them has gone. Can you look him up?’

‘Leo Chatterjee,’ she says. ‘With a double “e”, isn’t it? I’ve done this before, remember, and –’ She stops talking. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Right. Oh my God, Joe. I’d forgotten what it’s like in your world. Oh wow.’

‘What?’ I know roughly what she’s going to say, and she does.

‘It’s a news report from four days ago. Bodmin Parkway tragedy uncovered twenty years on.’ She holds out her phone so I can read the story. There’s a photo of Leo. Underneath it says:

A twenty-year-old mystery was solved yesterday when building contractors uncovered the body of a man who went missing in Bodmin in 1999. Leo Chatterjee, 33, was last seen on 11 March 1999 when he left his job at Lanhydrock House. He never arrived at his home in Par, and it was assumed he had left the area. However, building works near the station uncovered a body yesterday. It is thought that Chatterjee, who was unmarried with no close family, suffered a freak fall in the woods and was buried by the earth that fell with him. The search for him centred on Plymouth and further afield as sightings were reported on the train.

‘I knew it. His death has been explained now and he’s moved on. Shit! Shit!’

Ariel takes a deep breath. ‘That proves it, doesn’t it? What you always thought. We could –’ She stops herself.

‘That really was just an avatar Leo who I saw today,’ I say. ‘It was just a version of him furnishing my imaginary day, packing up an old book. I’m never going to see my Leo again.’ I feel as if I’ve lost a limb but worse because if I lost a limb right now it wouldn’t even hurt.

‘Joe,’ she says, ‘I know things have changed. But if you want we could revisit it. At least give it another go. We know now that it can happen. Let’s give it one more try. Let me have one more crack at tracking down Troy and you can –’ I see her casting around for anything I could do, and finding something – ‘take a photo of the angry man. Remember? You never did, did you? We’ll make this work. We’ll rescue you. It’s worth giving it one more shot, right?’