Seb opens the door with a look that I haven’t seen before. Is he worried or annoyed? He is in pyjamas but he hasn’t been to sleep – his hair’s still in place. I walk through to the kitchen. Every drawer has been taken out and laid either on the floor or some other surface.

‘What’s going on?’ I say uncertainly.

He looks at me briefly before turning away again.

‘What is it, Seb?’

He remains with his back to me for a minute before simply throwing his hands up. ‘Police, Xander. After they took you, some more turned up with a warrant for a search.’

‘To do with me?’ I say, puzzled.

‘Yes, to do with you.’

I walk up to him and touch him lightly on the arm.

‘But, I mean – you told them I don’t live here?’

He faces me and I can see the effort he is making to control his emotions.

‘I managed to send them away eventually, when I pointed out that the warrant was to do with your premises, not mine, but they’d already started searching through everything. I explained that the house wasn’t yours, but they’ll be back. I think it’s time you told me what’s going on, Xander.’

I nod. I don’t think I can put this off any longer. ‘Maybe we should sit,’ I say and take a seat at the breakfast table.

As I tell him about it all, he sits worrying the edges of a wicker place mat and says nothing. Once I have finished telling him about Squire, the drunk in the park, he gets up and finds two glass beakers, silently pouring an inch of expensive cognac into each. He hands me one, and still he says nothing. Then I tell him about number 42B. I describe it all in detail to him. I tell him about what I saw, about the woman being strangled, how I froze and then how I ran. How I told the police it all and how now it seems as though the place has transformed in just a few days.

And then I slow down, hesitant. I am coming to a precipice in the story and I feel the vertigo of it pulling us into a chasm.

‘Then they tell me there was a murder there after all. But it happened thirty years ago.’

‘What?’ he says finally. ‘You lost time?’

I stare at him in shock. ‘No. I didn’t lose time.’

‘Is it so surprising?’ He puts the place mat down. ‘You were in a pretty bad way back then, Xander. I remember the first time I saw you, after, you know, you disappeared. What was it, a year later? You were a mess. God knows what had happened to you.’