I’d eaten it all, don’t get me wrong. Two plates full, because I’ve always had a big appetite and you eat what’s put in front of you, but the whiff of it an hour or so afterwards was making me feel slightly sick. Yeah, I remember that. Mind you, lots of things make me feel a bit green around the gills these days and it’s not like this place ever smells particularly lovely, let’s be honest.

So . . . I was bowling down the corridor, trying not to think about the smell and gasping for a fag, when I heard all the shouting.

Swearing and screaming, stuff being chucked about, all that.

This was a Wednesday afternoon, two days before they found the body.

The sound really echoes in here, so I didn’t think too much about it to begin with. It’s not like I haven’t seen people lose it before, so I thought it might just be a row that sounded a lot worse than it was and it wasn’t until I actually got to the doorway and saw how full-on things were that I knew I was going to have to do something about it. That I needed to step in.

I’m an idiot. Three days before they found the body. Three . . .

It was a proper scrum in there. A couple of people were watching – one bloke I don’t know very well was actually clapping, like he thought it was some kind of special entertainment that had been laid on – but everyone else was grabbing and grunting, lurching around the room and knocking furniture over. Watching from the doorway, I couldn’t really tell who was doing the fighting and who was trying to stop the people who were doing the fighting. It was too late to work out what had started it, but I guessed it didn’t really matter by then and had probably never mattered much to begin with.

It doesn’t take much round here.

Half a dozen of them tangled up, scratching or pulling hair and calling each other all sorts. A mêlée, that’s the word, right? French, for a bunch of bad-tempered twats making idiots of themselves.

Wrestling and cursing, spitting threats.

The Waiter, he was there, and the Somali woman who likes touching people’s feet was getting properly stuck in, which was amazing as she’s about five foot nothing and skinny as a stick. Ilias was throwing his considerable weight about as was Lauren, while Donna and Big Gay Bob wriggled and squealed. And The Thing was there, obviously . . . he was right in the thick of it, kicking a chair over then trying to swing a punch at Kevin, who was backed up against a wall, while somebody else whose face I couldn’t see beneath their hoodie was hanging on to The Thing’s arm for dear life.

I mean, Christ on a bike.