‘You followed ’em about after that,’ Dave said, bringing him back to the here and now.

‘I went to their gigs, you mean,’ Dan said. ‘You make me sound like a sodding stalker.’ He had, in fact, almost stalked them – the Fusion Club in Chesterfield, a hotel in Sheffield two days later, Rotherham a week after that. He’d even watched them rehearse, in a room above a café in Division Street. But hey, he’d been nurturing a fledgling obsession, and at the time it seemed like these boys were gilded: glittering with nascent success. The future pulsed with fame and glory for them, for Dan, and for anyone who wanted to come with him for the ride. Alison saw them with him at the Rotherham gig. But by then, she was slipping through his fingers, not that he’d known it.

Dave nodded at Dan’s iPod, lying abandoned on the table in front of them. ‘What you listening to these days then?’

‘Everything,’ Dan said. ‘As usual.’

‘But what’re you liking?’

‘Oh, I spend a lot of time in the past,’ Dan said. ‘In my own time, I mean.’

‘What’s the last thing you reviewed?’

Jesus, thought Dan; it was great to see Dave but this could be tiresome, all the way to London. ‘BadBadNotGood,’ Dan said. ‘That’s their name, not my review. Canadian boys, jazzy-bluesy.’

Dave sniffed and pulled a face. ‘Sounds lame to me.’

‘It’s good. Probably even better if you’re stoned. Look, do you want a coffee? I’m off to the buffet car, shall I bring you something back?’

‘Oh yeah, thanks, mate. White, one sugar. And a KitKat? Split one with you.’

‘Is it your birthday?’

‘Feels like it,’ Dave said. ‘Bumping into the legendary Dan Lawrence.’

‘Yeah, right,’ Dan said, ‘don’t push your luck.’ He left his seat, and as he walked down the carriage he pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and opened Safari, then typed Comsat Angels into the search box, and there was the band, young men captured in black and white in a series of moody shots from the early days. At the buffet counter, he joined a small queue, and tapped on ‘Songs’, which led him to a long string of Comsat tracks. Any of them would do, but he scrolled on down, taking his time. Hovered over ‘Missing In Action’, which had opened the set, back in Doncaster in 1979, but then he hesitated, and continued. Down, down, down. There. This one. Twenty-five songs into the list. ‘Waiting For A Miracle’. He didn’t play it: didn’t need to. Instead he copied the link, sprinted with his thumb on to Twitter, on to messages, on to @AliConnorWriter and the short thread of two songs that they’d already shared, then he pasted the link and pressed send.

Done. A seminal piece of post-punk genius on its way to Adelaide. And a seminal piece of Daniel Lawrence too.

‘Aye-aye, what you up to, texting an old flame?’