We pull up outside a long low yellow-brick building with grass and shrubs outside.

Michael’s flat is on the ground floor, with a view of traffic (front) and walls (back), but it’s warm and clean and he’s made it feel like home. I recognise a number of the knick-knacks from his old flat, and for the first time they seem not just tacky souvenirs collected by an old man with poor taste, but portable pieces of a life.

He’s at the door with open arms, beaming as if I’m his long-lost son.

‘Well well well,’ he says, ‘the mountain has come to Mohamed. How lovely to see you, Robert.’ He puts a hand on each arm and looks at me. A cloud passes briefly over his face, then he’s all smiles again. ‘Come in! Come in! They say an Englishman’s home is his castle.’ He gestures around the tiny living room. ‘My castle!’

‘I’ll leave you two young lovebirds to it,’ says Stephen. ‘I have things to see, people to do. There’s a bus from the corner that goes straight to the end of your road, young man. Perhaps you’d like to learn how to use it.’

‘Don’t mind Stephen,’ says Michael, when he’s gone. ‘He always was an interfering old busybody. But I’m very grateful to him for bringing you. I hope you don’t mind being kidnapped.’

I laugh, and sit awkwardly in an armchair. There’s so little room for furniture. He must have got rid of most of it.

‘So, how are you, Robert? You look, if I may say so, a little the worse for wear.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing. Just working too hard I suppose.’

‘Hmm … And burning the candle at both ends.’

‘Something like that.’

He looks at me. ‘How’s Stuart?’

‘Fine, fine … As far as I know’

‘Oh dear.’

‘We’re just … taking a break.’

‘I’ll mind my own business. Well now. A cup of tea, or something.’

‘That would be lovely’

While he’s bustling around the kitchen, I pick up a silver-framed photograph. It shows a handsome young man with slicked-back hair, broad shoulders and a narrow waist, a movie-star grin, shirtsleeves rolled up to show thick, muscular forearms. One hand holds a jacket slung back over his shoulder. The other is shoved into his trouser pocket. It looks as if he’s deliberately plumping up his packet.

‘Oh, he was a terror,’ says Michael, right behind me, making me jump. ‘Look at him. My God, I was a lucky bugger.’

‘Is this …’ I can’t remember the dead partner’s name, if I ever knew it.

‘Yes. That’s him all right.’

‘He’s very … fit.’

‘Oh, my goodness! That’s the understatement of the century’

‘Did he go to the gym?’ I’m not sure if there were such things as gyms in those days.

‘Yes, dear, he may have popped in once or twice.’ Michael’s laughing at me, I think, but he’s too kind to show it. ‘Recognise the trousers?’

I look closer, and see the turn-ups, and realise I never gave them back.