It had started to rain. The thick cloud almost reached street level, but still the plume was there, a foul swatch of crisp, peristaltic filth against the opaque, even grey of the winter storm. No more ambiguity: it was closer. The question of why, or how, would have to wait. There were higher priorities.

I returned to the office, grimly aware of every clank and jangle that issued from my overweight coat, feeling like a cross between a poacher and a primitive robot from a 1950s movie. And getting into the office was only the start of it. Somehow I would have to get the bottle and decant the cans into it, when I was sure that my moves would not be closely watched. For the second time that day, I found myself stalled in the area between the lifts and the office, trying to figure out what to do next.

Fate came to my assistance. While I had been out, the lunch exodus had taken place. On a normal day I would have left before it started and returned after it had returned, so I had forgotten that it happened at all. But our part of the office was almost deserted – no Mohit, no Polly, no Rays, no Kay. Eddie was inside his stockade and Ilse was trying to burn holes through her vast Mac screen with a kind of focused horror. Neither was likely to pay me much heed. Keeping my coat on, I put the paper bag containing my sandwich down on my desk and picked up the aluminium bottle. Then I turned and left, going to the toilets, heart pounding in my chest. If I was discovered, explanations would be difficult and suspicions would be confirmed. Why take that risk? I did not have a ready answer to that – just that the unbearable pain of carrying on was, for today, better than the unknowable pain of stopping.

I had to use a cubicle, for privacy, and that presented more difficulties. The only flat surface was the seat, the cisterns were behind the tiled wall. The bottle would only fit two cans, so half of my purchase would have to wait until later, and I would have to repeat this whole ridiculous operation. I hung my winter coat on the back of the cubicle door and opened a can. The crack of the seal breaking seemed aberrantly loud in the confined space of the cubicle, and it hissed and spattered seething beer over the back of my hand. It had been bouncing around in my pocket, getting agitated, they all had, and I would need to be careful. Foam continued to well up, splashing onto the floor, so I put the can to my lips and slurped away the excess, desperate to stop the loss.