‘Has she gone?’

‘Let’s wait for her in the car, matey. We’ll be close by.’

‘Then I can show her my certificate?’

‘Yup.’

We got the lift back down to the car park level and returned to my car. Mel’s number was top of the favourites list on my mobile. It went straight to voicemail.

‘Hi, you’ve reached Mel’s mobile, please do leave a message and I promise I’ll get back to you as soon as poss.’ Beep.

I hung up, redialled. Voicemail again. This time I left a message.

‘Hi love, it’s me. Give me a call when you get this? Just wanted to make sure you’re OK . . . that everything’s OK. Call me.’

I sat five minutes more, starting to feel slightly foolish. I was supposed to be at home by now, running my son’s bath. Drinking a nice glass of red. Thinking about making a start on tonight’s marking. But instead I was here, in an underground car park just off the North Circular, trying to work out what the hell was going on upstairs. I wanted to check on her, but didn’t want to leave William. My suit shirt felt grimy and claustrophobic, a bead of sweat tracing a path down my ribcage.

So what’s the plan, Stan? What if Mel isn’t OK? What’s up with Ben? How long are you going to sit here with one bar of mobile reception, waiting and wondering?

There wasn’t a plan. I wasn’t going to do anything, just sit there and wait. Surprise my wife.

I didn’t have a plan. It just happened.

3

I opened up the Angry Birds app on my iPad and passed it back to William, flicked on the radio for my own distraction. Five Live was running a piece about dating websites, featuring a series of quick interviews with women describing what they were looking for in their perfect mate. Expectations seemed to be pretty high. Their ideal man had to be at least six feet tall, in possession of a good sense of humour, a nice smile and a six-pack. He had to be strong but not macho. Sensitive, but good at DIY. Confident, but not full of himself. Make decent money at work but still be around to do his share at home.

Blimey. It was exhausting just keeping track of it all.

Mel’s mobile went straight to voicemail again. I buzzed the window down and rested my elbow on the sill, absently turning the black leather bracelet on my right wrist as the radio presenter chattered on. Mel had given me the bracelet as an anniversary present: leather for three years. Now a big one was approaching – ten years – and there were already a few ideas on my list for that one. Ten was supposed to be tin but someone had said you could substitute diamond jewellery for tin. That was good. My plan had always been to give her a bigger diamond than I could afford as an early-career teacher when we first got –