‘Yeah, just come out to get some more paracetamol … No, no, hate those things … Look, just occurred to me, I should’ve said, Jonathan is going to need the assessment criteria … Yes … yes … that’s what I thought. I can email it when I get back home but if the meeting starts at half past does he need it before then?’

He listens to the reply for a while.

‘Okay, that’s great, brilliant … Yeah, straight back to bed. Orange juice and paracetamol … Dunno … not sure … not at the mo, it’s feeling pretty … I can do the update from home, could do that on Monday if I’m still not up to coming in, won’t take that long, will that be okay? Okay … Okay … Will you check with Anil for me?’

He moves the phone slightly and I can hear a female voice coming from it, a little laugh, although I can’t make out the words.

‘Gregory, you’re kidding!’ he says, responding to the laugh with another huff of amusement. ‘Listen, let me know if it’s going to, you know, cause problems for Anil, will you? Because I just …’ Another pause. ‘No, not my dressing gown, I’m not that much of a weirdo. I put my parka on over my pyjamas.’

More tinkling laughter, speech.

‘Yeah, straight back to bed. Promise. See you, yeah, bye … bye …’ He hangs up, slips the phone back in his pocket.

He’s ended the phone call just in time. An announcement blares, the robotic woman’s voice, slightly off-kilter where the variable details are dropped into a pre-existing sequence of words: The TEN, EIGHTEEN to EDINBURGH is delayed by approximately SIX minutes. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. He was very nearly busted there.

So, I think, our man is a liar: a bare-faced liar, in fact, bold or careless with it. He risked a phone call to the office claiming he was nipping to his local shops when the audible background of a train station concourse could have betrayed him at any moment. I presume he was intending to go to work when he arrived at the station this morning but for some reason changed his mind, bought himself a cup of coffee and has been sitting here thinking and staring – how long for? And he’s setting things up to be off on Monday as well, as if he already knows he won’t make it through the barriers then either. How very intriguing.