There was a moment of silence, the smoke coiling lazily between us.

‘Joe,’ he said finally, putting his briefcase down. ‘What are you . . .? How’s it going, big fella?’

‘All good. Really good. How about you?’

‘Yeah, sound. Business is booming, you know. You still setting the teaching world on fire?’

I had never been good at Awkward Bloke Conversations. And Ben had never looked on me as an equal – more a bit of an also-ran, just another public-sector softie who wouldn’t last five minutes in the dog-eat-dog world he inhabited.

‘Something like that,’ I said, forcing a grin. ‘You just had a meeting up in the hotel?’

He opened his mouth to reply, closed it again. Tried to look past me.

‘Yeah.’ He took another drag of his cigarette, blowing smoke from the side of his mouth. ‘A meeting.’

‘A work thing?’

‘Potential client. A lead I’ve been warming up for a while.’

‘You didn’t see Mel?’

‘What?’

‘My Mel. She was just here.’

He almost flinched at the mention of her name, but caught himself. Instead he just shook his head, dark eyes shifting towards his car.

‘No mate, not seen her.’

It was weird seeing him like this – evasive, reluctant, almost shifty – compared to his usual alpha-male demeanour. At the one and only poker game I had played at his house, he had regaled the table with a story about a former employee of his company who had quit to set up on his own, in competition with him. Ben had felt betrayed – so he had made it his personal mission to trash the guy’s reputation in the industry, warning potential customers off, until the former employee’s new company went bankrupt and he lost his house in the process. Ben had related the story with a trace of pride in a rival destroyed, an air of screw with the bull and you get the horns. It was the kind of guy he was. You didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him.

‘You sure you didn’t see her?’ I said. ‘I thought you were talking to her upstairs? It looked like serious stuff.’

‘Nope.’ He flicked his cigarette away. ‘Look, Joe, I’ve really got to shoot.’

My tie suddenly felt too tight in my collar. He made to move past me and I instinctively put a hand on his arm.

‘Don’t want to make a big deal out of it, Ben, I was just worried about –’

He whirled on me and grabbed two handfuls of my shirt, slamming me against the side of his 4 x 4. He was surprisingly strong for his size and his anger caught me off-guard.

‘Just leave it!’ he shouted, northern inflection rising to the surface. Cigarette breath close in my face. ‘Just leave it alone, you big daft bastard! You have no idea! Bloody classic underachiever, that’s all you are, all you’ve ever been.’

He had anger, but I had size. At six foot two, I was six inches taller than him. And at least three stone heavier.