I had done three years and gained my membership of the Institute of Electrical Engineers when I came back to London to see my friends: Beryl first, Lucy, who had got married to Tom and had a flat in Tufnell Park, then Niall and his girlfriend, who were living together in a house they had bought in a not-yet-fashionable part of Islington, and Guy and his wife. He had married his father’s secretary, a very beautiful girl who had taken the job once intended for me.

I’ve never completely got over my fear of underground places, though I’m much better than I used to be. But I don’t believe in causing oneself unnecessary suffering, so I went to Tufnell Park on the bus. It was while I was walking along Dalmeny Avenue that I met Jonny. The first I saw of him was an unmarked white van parked at the curb.

It could have been anybody’s. It’s very unlikely it was the same one Jonny had before he went to prison. But women don’t look into the cabs of vans. If by chance they catch the driver’s eye, he’ll take it as a come-on. I walked past with my eyes averted and suddenly Jonny was in my path. He had jumped out and stood there blocking my way.

“Long time no see.”

“I thought you were in jail,” I said.

He grinned. “Fancy a cuppa or something stronger?”

“Not with you.”

I probably only dared talk to him like that because there were a lot of people on the street. He took it with an amiability strange to him. Or new. “Don’t be like that. Give me a nice smile. No? Okay, do be like that. I’ve got questions for you I’d like answered and I bet you’ve got plenty for me.”

I sat down on the wall of someone’s front garden. “What do you want to know?”

“That Liv, the one I used to go about with, what’s with her? Where did she go? And there was a big dark girl”—he sketched in the air a grotesquely curved female shape—“I don’t recall her name. I wouldn’t have half-minded getting in there.”

“Liv disappeared.” Judy had told me Morna had got a university post in Japan but I resisted passing that on. “I don’t know any of those people anymore.” I thought of Wim, wondering about him as I so often did. “I haven’t plenty of questions for you. I haven’t any.”

The amiability was all gone, the pseudo-friendliness. He stood in front of me, bending toward me, his hands on his hips. “You’ve got one.”

“Have I?” I started to get up.