Mark’s hands shake as he pushes his bank card into the cash machine. He’s been relying on handouts rather than buying food lately, but his memory is sketchy about how much booze he’s slid through the self-service check-out over the last couple of weeks.

And he needs a drink now. After delivering that note. And almost being caught by that brick shithouse with a dog.

Balance: £42.00. He breathes a sigh of relief and hits the ten pounds button. Enough for a third of a litre of Smirnoff Red Label, and that will do. He crosses the road and trudges into the Co-op, the only shop around here where he doesn’t feel like a total imposter. Back on the pavement, with the slim glass bottle tucked into his coat pocket, Mark hesitates. He can’t face going back to the squat just yet. He could go to Clapham Common. There’d be faces up there he knew, but the conversation would inevitably turn to Jon, and he can’t stomach that either.

Without a plan, Mark turns right instead of left towards the squat and keeps walking, over St John’s Hill, and under the mass of railway lines out of Clapham Junction station, rusted iron girders juddering above him as a train groans past. There’s a patch of grass on his right, like a miniature park with bulbous trees and low fencing, and one empty bench at the back. It feels familiar somehow. Mark walks inside, drops down on the bench, and cracks open the bottle.

The more vodka he drinks, the less he cares about almost getting caught. The truth is, he wants Beth to know the note was from him, as long as she can’t actually prove it, and he made sure to wear gloves and write with his left hand to avoid that outcome. He wants her to be scared of him. He wonders what she’s doing now, double-checking her window locks perhaps, or even better, crying her eyes out, snotty tears descending down her not-so-pretty-anymore face.

The bottle is almost empty when Mark realises why this stretch of grass is familiar. He’s been here before. It was daytime, too warm for autumn, and there were mums on picnic blankets entertaining kids with plastic bottles filled with fairy liquid. But it’s definitely the same place. He was waiting for Jon while the old guy visited his dealer-cum-employer, choosing to stay one step removed from Jon’s line of work, because that’s not who he is.