The little egg timer froze as the pictures were loading to his mobile hard drive, and a window popped up to tell him there was only ten per cent of battery remaining. Shit. Shit. His ransacking session had not unearthed a charger and, now he thought about it, it was probably in that pile of wires they’d chucked out a couple of years ago. He knew what else he thought was on there – the rough-cut files from that studio session. He wanted to hear their voices singing together. He wanted to hear her talking, stopping takes, giving him instructions that he remembers being pissed off about at the time. Having made sure the photos were safe, he shoved the laptop in a bag and made for the door, chucking a hoody on over his pyjama bottoms as he went.

Flash. Scrubbing lipstick off coffee cups every time it was his turn to do the dishes. Can’t you just wait till after breakfast before you put your slap on, he’d asked. Dinnae come between a woman and her lippy, darling, she’d said, getting all Scottish on him, and left the room. He only ever saw her without the make-up on last thing at night, during her meticulous cleansing and moisturising routine, as she was always up before him in the morning. That’s how he’d known when she was getting bad again, towards the end, her face blanched of all colour, blending in with that ratted ashy dressing gown. After a while he just left the pink tannins on and sipped around the stains. Nobody else really came to visit them anyway.

The Uber had dropped him off at a really grotty-looking shop, a sign on faded neon card in the manky window: WE FIX COMPUTER’S.

Still, this must be the place. Calvin said he swore by the guy, and Calvin was nerd enough to know. The fat little man behind the counter sucked in his breath over his teeth and Hamza winced.

‘Yeah, I can do it. Cost ya, though.’

‘You’ve got a charger for it?’

‘Yeah. Well, I’ll be able to source one.’

‘And you can just put it all on a hard drive for me? The lot?’

‘Yeah. Take a bit of time, though.’

‘What you reckoning, price-wise?’

‘Yeah, see with the vintage models it’s difficult to tell, innit? Could be anything over four hundred if I got to get new parts. Could be up to seven hundred.’