As he stood there alone, the last few of the other midweek drinkers nodding their farewells to the landlord and his staff and drifting out, it irked him that he’d been marooned here. Though, as he downed his last pint of the evening in desultory fashion, he supposed he hadn’t been marooned as such. If it had slipped his notice that they’d reached a communal decision to terminate the crawl early, then it was as much his fault as anyone else’s. So, he couldn’t really be angry with them. Not that this would stop him taking the mickey in the morning, or more likely in the afternoon, when he was finally fit to re-emerge, calling them plastics and phonies.

These things happened, he reflected, as he threaded his unsteady way back across a central Birmingham awash with glistening October rain, and at this hour on a weekday almost bare of life. He wasn’t sure what time it was. Probably around one. Which wasn’t too bad. He had no lectures of note in the morning, so he could sleep until noon.

But he was only a hundred yards down the road, heading due southwest towards Edgbaston, when he remembered something important. It was quite fortuitous. A ‘Poundstretcher’ sign caught his eye, reminding him that he was supposed to draw some extra money out tonight. He was going home to Brighton this weekend, for his older brother, Jason’s, stag do. Keith sniggered. There’d be no phonies tolerated on that seafront tour; any who thought they were going to try it would get dragged to the last few venues by their underpants’ elastic.

Of course, Keith wouldn’t be involved in any of that if he didn’t have enough money. In his quest to find a cashpoint, he backtracked a little along Broad Street, and then crossed the canal, heading roughly in the direction of the city centre.

It was vaguely unsettling, even in his drunken state: there was literally no one else around.

That was partly because of the lateness of the hour, but primarily because rain was still falling in torrents: rivers gushed out of pipes and gurgled down drains; lagoons had formed at road junctions, the occasional passing vehicle kicking them up in spectacular waves. Keith was in his usual attire – jeans, trainers, and zip-up lightweight anorak over his T-shirt, though in truth that ‘anorak’ certainly wasn’t protecting him tonight, his T-shirt already soaked through; at least that went with his jeans which were also sopping, not to mention his trainers.