Morning comes and I crawl from my cardboard sleeve and pat myself clean of loose debris. At the mouth of the alleyway, in the bins, I find some packaged sliced ham and peel back the film. My thoughts in the cold of the morning feel crusted in ice. I crouch and unwrap the foil strips that I had tied around my wrists and ankles. The flesh underneath is warm and I close my eyes at the comfort. Once I found sheets of foil down the alleyway of a group of buildings in Soho. They’d been perfect large squares – something related to photography or art I decided – and I’d covered my waist and the full length of both arms with the foil. Parts of them had lasted months until, like everything, they finally withered away.

I have to move now that I am breakfasted. I head to Paddington Green Station at a march. Twenty or thirty minutes later I am there and go straight to the bored desk sergeant.

‘I have information to give about a crime,’ I say.

He looks up as if he is surprised. Then he is appraising me, almost dismissing me. It is only my voice, the undisguisable education feathering each word that keeps him from pushing me out of the door or into a cell. Seb’s clothes are losing their power with dirt and usage.

‘Is Conway here? Or Rachel Blake?’ I say.

He turns to a phone and dials it before mumbling into the mouthpiece. ‘DI Blake’ – he emphasises the name – ‘is on her way. You can wait there.’ He nods to some painted blue metal seats behind me.

A second later Blake appears in a polka-dotted dress. She looks different. It’s not the dark hair tied into a ponytail or the dress which tries to recast her from severe to softened. It’s her face. She has a look that I have seen before: of a person who has walked into the night and kept on walking. She opens the low gate and beckons me through without a word or even a glance. I follow her as she tries one of the rooms we have been in before but it’s locked. She keeps pulling door handles until finally one gives way. It looks the same as the other rooms I have been in, featureless and bland.

‘I have some information,’ I say. ‘About number 42B.’

She rubs her face vigorously for a second and when her hands leave, her face looks raw.

‘I haven’t got time for this, Xander. There’s no murder. You’re already under charge for perverting, don’t make it worse for yourself.’

I nod impatiently, waiting for her to finish.

‘I know all that, but I’ve been back there. There’s a new alarm.’

She stands up and makes for the door but then pauses to face me.