It only takes a few more minutes’ rooting through the search results before I come across pages full of articles about memory loss as a symptom of PTSD. I was expecting as much. I skim-read a few, but I’m not convinced that’s what’s going on. They’re all about memory loss as the brain’s coping mechanism, which would mean that, in my case, I would be blanking out the ‘traumatic incident’ because it’s simply too painful to remember. I’m not saying it’s a ridiculous idea, but it’s been a year and a half since Johnno was killed, so could it really be delayed that much? More important, it’s not like that’s what being blanked out, is it? I’ve got no memory at all of flicking bits of fish finger at L-Plate, while I can remember every hideous moment of what happened in that crack-head’s flat.

The pattern on that carpet. Blue and green and blood-red.

It doesn’t make any sense at all.

I close my laptop and decide that Google is brilliant if you want to know which film you’ve seen some actor in, or how old someone is, but that using it to try and work out what might be wrong with you never goes well.

I leave my room and prowl around a bit, not sure what to do with myself.

Like a fart in a colander, my mum always says.

They’ll have started dishing up lunch by now, but I don’t much fancy sitting there chit-chatting with the rest of them. I’m not really up to it. I can usually sweet-talk Eileen into giving me a sandwich or something once the service has finished and they’ve all buggered off, so I decide to leave it a while.

I walk past George and Femi without saying anything.

I ignore Tony, who’s drumming on his suitcase by the airlock.

One of the Informals – who might be called Trevor – is sitting on his own in the music room doing a jigsaw, so I wander in. He’s fifty-ish and wears a suit – without a tie, obviously – like he’s just arrived from an office somewhere. He’s a bit red-faced, like he might be a drinker, but beyond that I’ve no idea what his story is. I’ve seen him around the last few days, but we’ve never really spoken, which is my bad, probably. Normally I prefer to stick with my own crowd, because there are fewer surprises, but right now I’m uneasy about it.

I want to talk to someone I don’t know at all.

I sit down and say, ‘All right?’