This was an elderly Englishman, a fellow traveller, waiting for his luggage. He looked at Ali with a sort of cheerful sympathy.

‘Oh, not really,’ she said, standing up at once, pulling herself together. She stooped to begin gathering up her possessions, and he did the same, handing her a used tissue, lip balm, an Adelaide metro card, a compact mirror. ‘I lost my phone, that’s all.’ She felt awkward, sharing the contents of her handbag with this gentlemanly stranger.

‘Ah, gosh, that’s a disconcerting feeling, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘How we all depend upon our phones, even myself, who once swore I’d never use one! Would you like to borrow mine, let someone know you’re here?’

She smiled, wanly. ‘I’d need to log on to Twitter,’ she said. ‘But then it’ll send a security passcode to my phone, and of course I don’t have it.’

‘Pardon? Log on to what?’

‘Never mind,’ Ali said. ‘It’s complicated.’

‘Ah,’ said the man, looking crestfallen.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort something out – but look, there’s my bag, I’d better go.’

‘Well, leave a number at lost property,’ he said, determined to help one way or another. ‘Someone they can call if it’s found?’

‘Yeah,’ Ali said, although there really was no one, because she possessed no phone numbers and not a soul on this island was expecting her. ‘Thanks for being kind.’ She hauled her rucksack from the belt and waved goodbye to him before making her way through customs, then following signs for taxis, thanking God that she still had her cash and her cards. She had no real sense of where Heathrow was in relation to the rest of London, or, in fact, where Dan’s boat was moored, but that’s where she hoped to head, because it was a start. She’d heard of the famous wisdom of London cab drivers, so she climbed into the first in line and sat down, and when the driver said, ‘Where to, darlin’?’ she said, ‘I’m kind of hoping you’ll tell me.’

‘Come again?’ he said, looking at her through his mirror.

‘Excuse me?’

‘What did you say, love?’

‘I need to get to the canal, to a narrowboat on the canal.’

All she knew was that Dan’s boat was called Crazy Diamond and that Lisa and Frank and Jim lived on either side of him, on the canal. In Adelaide, this might’ve possibly been sufficient information, but she felt a fool now, coming so ill-equipped to this teeming capital city.

‘Right,’ said the cabbie. ‘I might need a bit more info from you, darlin’. Where’s it moored, this narrer-boat?’

‘On the canal?’ As opposed to the River Thames, she meant, but oh God, this was humiliating.