Platform Seven is new. They built it four years ago, apparently – the staff still talk about the disruption it caused. You would think that Peterborough Station was quite big enough – but no, off they go, extending it, building another two platforms where the old freight line and the fly-ash sidings used to be. It is the part of the station furthest from the entrance, from the Duty Team Leader’s office and the Customer Information Point. The man may not know the names of these different parts of the station’s administrative system but he will know that on Platform Seven he’s as far away as he can get from any staff. The main entrance opens at 3 a.m. to admit the passengers taking the first train south but only a handful of souls arrive for that, mostly train staff on their way to work, and it goes from Platform One. There’s no legitimate reason for anyone to be anywhere near Platform Seven at this hour. The first passenger train is the 06.10 to Birmingham New Street. If he’s here for that, he’s awfully early.

When I find him he is sitting on the metal bench about three quarters of the way along, the far bench, nearest the access ramp, the quietest part of the whole station. It isn’t on the way to anywhere else, you’d only go there if you wanted to be there – or not anywhere at all.

He is around sixty years old, a large man, tall, I can see that even though he is sitting down. I’ve got good at assessing the physicality of people, good at weighing and measuring their bodies with my leisurely gaze. He is wearing a thick, old-fashioned jacket, the sort that used to be called a donkey jacket, navy with a leather panel. Never quite as warm as they should be, those jackets, and the way he is hunched suggests that it sits heavily on his shoulders, as if everything in his life that is weighing on him is represented in his coat.

But then, why would anybody look cheerful when they are sitting on a metal bench at the end of Platform Seven on Peterborough Railway Station on a pitch-black, freezing cold November morning?