He did five more rounds of pranayama while I listened to the breath enter and exit his body. At first I had been surprised by Pete’s interest in yoga, his seriousness. I had no interest in something that would leave my hair smelling of feet and nag champa and remind me of the lingering instability of my knee. But Pete was oddly susceptible – not only to the practice of yoga, but to its trappings. Over time he’d amassed a collection of cheap buddha statues and positioned them throughout our apartment, avoiding the fatter, laughing buddhas in favour of the more svelte and serene.

Yoga, he said, focused his mind. It made him calmer, kinder. But still he looked at Cilla the way I’d seen him look at the homeless, at drunk people, at artists: anyone who wasn’t being careful enough. Anyone who, in case of accident, would only have themselves to blame.

We got out of the car and stood looking at the final house. If you entered into a database every house that had been built anywhere in the past hundred and fifty years and programmed the computer to spit out the median house, the one right in the socket of average, this would be it. What can I say? Double-storey, single-fronted, white weatherboard. And clean. So clean the light bounced right off it without snagging on decoration or dust. A billboard advertising the house had been erected against the fence. Its headline read: Sure to Impress.

Pete rubbed his dry palms together, hard and fast like he was trying to start a fire.

‘This is the one.’ He turned and looked me right in the eyes. ‘This is the one.’

Cilla came to stand by us. The wind blew strands of her hair into her lip gloss and she didn’t try to extricate them.

‘This place looks brand new,’ I said.

Cilla gave a bright smile. ‘It’s a foreclosure,’ she said.

She walked with jerky purpose up the smooth concrete paving to the front door.

Once inside, Pete scanned the place keenly.

‘Three bedrooms,’ Cilla said, consulting her notes. ‘Master with ensuite and walk-ins. Fully insulated, with underfloor heating. The dishwasher and oven are as-new.’

We had walked into a white and grey open-plan living area with engineered floors. Everything was big, as though the place had been built for outsized people. The ceilings were high, the windows broad, the marble island in the kitchen long and exaggerated. Pete walked around touching nothing, respectful, as if he was in a church.

‘Did I mention the gas log fire?’ said Cilla, lisping in her baby voice.

She went to the wall and retrieved a remote control. She pressed a button and low blue flames sprung up to perform a pantomime of consuming the faux log at their centre.