He taps Lee on the cheek. ‘Lighten up, I was only joking in what I said about Maggot. I was joking, that was all. You shouldn’t take it so serious.’ Then, in one swift movement, he straightens and moves off. ‘I’m late for my interview, now, aren’t I?’ he calls back. ‘I’m going to have to get an Uber.’

After a few strides, he stops and turns around. ‘I can find out where you live. Where the Fiesta goes at night.’

‘You won’t need to.’

‘Course I won’t.’ He laughs and offers one last grin. Dangerous Darren, signing out. And he lopes off through the trees.

In the back of the white van, there’s movement. In the dark, a shape writhes under rough cloth. A gamey smell pervades the vehicle, which hasn’t been cleaned in a long time.

‘Alright back there?’ a voice enquires, one of the men in the front. His crumbly leather jacket chafes against the seat as he swivels to look back. ‘You’ll be better off out here,’ he says. ‘Fewer people to make a fuss.’ His voice is soft, cajoling as the van travels through the evening.

The second man chips in, ‘It’s a lovely wood, you’ll see. You won’t know yourself in the forest.’

The incline rises gently, nothing to tax the engine. They turn onto one road, then another. The forest marks their progress while knowing nothing of their purpose. It knows only the diesel smell of the van, birdsong, a helicopter’s beating wings far off, and the general, distant whine of traffic in an off-key communion. Even these are mere sensations, hardly worth the forest’s notice compared with everything it has seen: plague, blight and die-off, years and seasons, et cetera.

Of what consequence is a van winding uphill? The forest has stood here through the ages. It is now a scrap of its former self: it once reached halfway to the coast. But it holds the memory of those times and has a sense of diminished grandeur. It can recall, with some precision, the facts of its life to date. But not human facts. As a species, humans all tend to look the same; they blend into each other.

From the point of view of the forest, the men in the van do not mean much. Still, the forest wants to know – it tries to ascertain – their motives. Why do they bother doing this thing that they are doing? Why bother with anything, when it amounts to so little? The forest is world-weary, but despite itself it wonders. It sends its feeling out towards them. It feels the imprint of the tyres and through them the sounds of the van engine, which is in reasonable running order, someone is keeping it in good nick.