The eastbound Central Line platform was quiet, but I would have been happiest turning right and walking along it to find its quietest part. Alan had different ideas and turned left, where there was only a short stretch before the platform ended. Again, he said this was habit – it was where the rear of the train would be, and there would be more room, in theory, for his bags. I doubted his reasoning. I doubted his Tube sense. And we were left standing in an awkward corner between two staff-only doors, right by the tunnel mouth. One of those doors was a concertina-like affair, which I found gravely unnerving. Warning signs. Cabinets closed with inspection tape, like a crime scene. My discomfort was ticking upwards at regular, frequent intervals. The coffee could only be tolerated for ten seconds or so in one hand before it had to be passed to the other, and was still too hot to be sipped. I tried, once, and scalded the roof of my mouth and the middle knuckles of the fingers of my right hand. While the pain of that had subsided, stickiness had spread between all my fingers, across my palm, and down to my wrist. I wanted to wash my hands in icy water, and to splash that water against my face. I wanted to be holding a cool can, fresh from the fridge. How had Alan drunk his so quickly? His innards must be Le Creuset.

‘Do you got it with you?’ Alan said, without intro.

‘Got?’ I said. ‘It?’

‘The mag,’ Alan said. ‘The one with the F.A.B. piece in it. Want to see how it came out.’

Had he asked for one? I couldn’t remember. I had considered bringing along a copy of the magazine to give to Pierce, but I hadn’t written anything in the most recent issue, and I knew he had already seen the one with the Quin interview – besides, I wasn’t too proud of that one. If I went through the back issues until I found a feature I was proud of, I’d be taking him a copy from three years ago, and that just seemed plain odd.

‘You weren’t sent one? You should have been sent one.’

‘Nah.’

‘Typical.’

‘Muppets,’ Alan said, shaking his head. Wanting to align myself with Alan, against the muppets, I tried to think of an equivalent term of cockney abuse.

‘Ragamuffins,’ I said. Then winced.

Alan frowned. ‘You need to have a word. You guys used to be the best, a right treat to work with – good as Monocle, good as Condé fucking Nast. Taxis, expenses, assistants …’

‘Times are tough.’ I couldn’t remember the last time Eddie had sprung for a taxi. The no taxis rule was so strict and long-established it might be in the Old Testament.

‘How’d it turn out?’