‘Good to see you’re even more spirited than you used to be. I’ve missed that about you,’ he said, reaching out as if to touch my face. I deflected his hand before he could reach me, and he laughed again. It wasn’t a pleasant sound.

‘Don’t touch me,’ I said, hoping the tone of my voice was warning enough. I regretted it instantly; I should have realised someone like Mike would take that as a challenge.

He smirked. ‘You’re probably used to having men touch you, I’m sure.’

I didn’t respond. I wasn’t going to rise to it. Looking over his shoulder, I hoped Singh or even Liz Marcek would appear again soon and give me an excuse to get away from him.

Following my line of sight, Mike stepped back for a moment and leant on my car.

‘So, what are you actually doing here?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m sure the police are able to employ better qualified people to interpret for them. That’s the thing about you CODAs, you all assume you’re better than other hearing people who can sign.’

Before he met me, Mike wouldn’t have known what a CODA was – a child of deaf adults, meaning a hearing child brought up in a deaf family, usually using BSL. The part of me that wasn’t desperately thinking of a way to get away from him was interested that he’d now picked up on this as a way to insult and undermine me.

‘I’m here because I’m on the contact list should Humberside police need a qualified interpreter.’

I couldn’t resist the dig about being qualified, after what he’d said. He was the sort of person who always assumed he was better at everything than the next man or woman, even if that person had spent years training and gained far more experience than he had.

He nodded slowly. ‘I see, I see. Fine, don’t tell me what it’s really about.’

I took a step to the side and looked round him again. For a moment I considered going inside to look for someone, anyone, but Mike would follow me in there and he knew the building far better than me. He was leaning on the driver’s side door, so I couldn’t just get in my car and drive away.

‘How long have you been working here, then?’ I asked him. Several years ago I had learnt that the best way to deflect Mike was to ask him to talk about himself.