To my right was a tall metal fence and, clearly visible just beyond it, a set of railway tracks. Across the tracks was the station, deserted at this hour but brightly lit. The metal fence was too tall and solid for someone as physically incompetent as me to scale – although someone stronger and braver might give it a go. Annoying that fence looks so secure, I thought. If it wasn’t for that, I could just nip across the first set of tracks, cross the station using the covered walkway and go straight out the front. There were no trains around, after all, it was the middle of the night and the station was closed. I wondered if that meant they locked the front entrance, though even if I could get through, would I be able to get out the other side?

I stopped for a moment, there in the dark, looking across the road and through the dull silver bars of the fence. I looked at the tracks, the station. It was odd to see it from this angle, to see somewhere that was so busy during the day so deserted at night – I was seeing the secret life of the place, the life that was there every night. How beguiling it was, to be spying on a world where I didn’t belong.

This secret life has always been here, I thought, and I’ve never even thought about it. A slight mist hung in the air. I shivered, pulled the mac round me. The platform nearest to me, Platform Seven, was the brand new one they built a couple of years ago, along with a huge Waitrose – the disruption the works caused kept the inhabitants of Peterborough talking for months. I could still remember when it was just five platforms, and how the shiny new ones seemed a bit unreal when they opened, as if they didn’t really belong to the old station. Just through the fence and across the tracks, standing in the middle of the platform, there was a fox. It was motionless, facing my way. I was too far away and sheltered by the darkness but still I had the sensation it could see me. It lifted its snout and gave a single warning bark.

My choices seemed to be to press on up this way, towards the housing estate, and see if there was a way through to Spital Bridge further up the tracks, or to turn back and … as I thought this, I turned, and there, at the far end of the slip road, standing right in the middle and silhouetted in the light from the Portakabin, was a tall figure in a hooded parka. The face was lost in darkness but by the stature, I knew it to be Matty. He was stock still, legs slightly apart, hands in pockets.