‘I want you to tell me why you haven’t been to school for three days.’

His face was a crescent of misery. I had been keeping my imagination in check but now it broke loose and galloped away from me. I pictured drug deals, the skinny shifty kids who hung around by the canal, a leering fat man beckoning from a doorway. The images catapulted me out of my chair and I grabbed Jack by the arms and shook him hard. ‘Where’ve you been?’ I yelled. ‘Who have you been with?’

He stared at me. His eyes had rings under them and there was dirt and jam around his mouth.

‘Where? Who?’ I shouted again and my shaking made his head wobble.

‘Nowhere,’ he breathed. ‘Just … nowhere.’

‘You must have been somewhere.’

‘I walked around. Sat on a bench. Then when it was time to come home, I came home.’

‘For three whole days?’

He nodded, mute and despairing.

I sank back on my heels and tried to take stock. I wouldn’t gain anything by allowing anger to balloon out of my fears for him. ‘That must have been horrible. Much worse than going to school. You must have felt lonely.’

If he had let some pervert befriend him, if he had been sniffing glue out of a brown-paper bag, or stealing from Sue’s Superette on the corner, or buying crack or other things that I couldn’t even imagine, would he give me a clue?

He said, ‘I watched the pigeons. They’re filthy. Did you know that there are hardly any sparrows left in London?’

I closed my eyes for a second. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or infuriated. ‘Let’s not talk about birds right now, Jack. Let’s try to work out exactly what it is about going to school that makes you so miserable you’d rather sit alone on a bench all day.’

He appeared to consider the matter. I looked at the way that tufts of hair partly exposed the pink lobe of his ear and the prickle of recent acne along his jawline. In profile he resembled Tony, increasingly so now that his proper face was emerging out of the putty softness of childhood.

‘I dunno.’ The shrug again.

‘Yes, you do. Is someone picking on you? A teacher? Other kids?’

‘Not really. They think I’m sad. But I think they’re even sadder.’

The rock of his unhappiness held glinting seams of mineral disdain. Jack was sharp-witted and he wouldn’t have much time for losers, even though he might currently consider himself to be one.

‘All of them? Everyone? Isn’t there anyone you like or admire?’