With the tip of her finger, she raised the flap of the envelope. She could see a single folded sheet inside — good-quality paper, as was the envelope with its lining of brown tissue. The writing covered both sides of the page. She probed a little deeper: a fountain pen had been used, black ink, spidery script, neat enough, but she guessed not easy to read.

The letter lay in its envelope on top of the newspaper. Sylvie didn’t move; her hands gripped the edge of the table. The prohibition against reading other people’s mail was wrestling with the ravenous heart of the collector. She stared at the letter, stared so intently it seemed to move under her gaze, willing her, goading her to read it. She lowered her hands, clenched them together in her lap, and directed her attention away from the letter to the view beyond the window. A man was hurrying across the road, heading this way. He slowed down as he approached the café, peered through the window, saw the letter, glanced at her, and a moment later was standing by her table.

‘I was afraid I’d lost it,’ he said, gathering up the letter and holding it to his chest. ‘If someone had found it and posted it,’ he was shaking his head slowly, ‘I don’t know what I would have done.’

He was breathless from stress, or relief, or the dash through the streets. His tie was awry, his collar button was undone, and his copious hair sprang wildly about his face. He was a trim, compact, broad-browed man of about her age, not conventionally handsome, but quite attractive, a middle-aged version of Art Garfunkel.

He stood by the table, the letter still pressed to his chest. Gradually, his breathing slowed and his face shed its distress. He did not move away. Sylvie wondered if he were in a state of shock.

‘I was about to order another coffee,’ she heard herself say. ‘Would you like to join me?’ The words slipped out easily, as if she made a practice of inviting strange, stressed-out men to have coffee with her.

He accepted immediately, more with an explosion of breath than actual words, and dropped into the chair opposite. He placed the letter on the table, buttoned his collar, straightened his tie, and made an attempt to tame the pesky hair. The proprietor came over and greeted him by name, took their orders, and then, without any prompting from Sylvie, Mark Asher began to talk. He talked in a way one can only do with a stranger never to be seen again, he talked as if he had needed to for a long time.