Iris stares at me, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you rode a motorbike,” she says.

“It’s an automatic,” I say, shrugging like Lucas. Adrenaline has gifted me nonchalance.

Lucas arrives shortly afterwards. “He has a wife,” I hiss at Iris, before he gets out of the tow truck. Even a man of Lucas’s gargantuan proportions would be powerless against one of Iris’s charm offensives.

“A pity,” says Iris, her eyes roaming the length and breadth of him. I jump up, make brief introductions. Lucas nods, walks towards the car, stops at the open bonnet, and bends, nose-deep in the engine. Dad stands beside him. “I drove a taxi for years,” he says. “Never had an accident.”

This is true, not counting today.

Mam always said that she and Dad had their best times in his taxi. He was easier to talk to when he was behind the wheel. A careful and considerate driver, she said. The best version of himself.

“What do you think?” I ask Lucas.

“You need a new radiator.” He straightens, casting me in the length of his shadow. “And the windscreen should be replaced too, there is a hairline crack here.” He points to a crack in the glass, then runs his hand along the dented front panel. “I could beat this back into some kind of shape, I suppose. It won’t look pretty, but it’s cheaper than ordering a new one. Quicker too, if you are in a hurry.”

“We are in a hurry,” Iris says. “How long will it take to repair the radiator?”

Lucas does that thing that mechanics do. He shakes his head, looking both grave and doubtful. “Two days,” he says, before covering himself with a vague, “give or take.”

“We don’t have two days,” says Iris, struggling to stand. “I have to be in Zurich tomorrow,” she says.

Zurich. The word rises around me, like damp.

Lucas looks inside the engine again. “I suppose I could use an egg,” he says.

“I don’t have any eggs,” I say.

“What would you use an egg for?” Iris asks, which is actually what I wanted to know.

Lucas begins to attach my car to his tow truck. “It is only a quick fix,” he says. “I pour raw egg into the radiator and it cooks, which, hopefully, seals the crack.”

“Hopefully?” I say, not loving the sound of the word in that sentence.

“What about the windscreen?” Iris says.

Lucas shrugs. “I could use sticky-tape,” he says, “since you are in a hurry.”

I am also not loving the word, “sticky-tape.” “Great,” says Iris, as if he hadn’t said, “sticky-tape.”

“But the car cannot be driven until tomorrow morning at the earliest,” he adds.

“I can’t wait that long,” says Iris.

“It’s less than four hours’ drive from here to Zurich,” Lucas says.

“Not the way Terry drives,” says Iris.

Lucas lifts the motorbike into the back of the truck as if it is a child’s toy. We take our belongings out of my car and pile into the tow truck.