‘Because one day a hundred and fifty-odd years ago, some bright spark thought that carrying five tonnes of gunpowder and a few barrels of petroleum together on the same barge was a good idea. Ready-made torpedo, exploded to smithereens right here. Now that was a big mistake.’ He looks around like there might still be some debris to point out to me.

‘Took the bridge with it. They reckon fish rained from the sky that day in the West End.’ He chuckles. ‘I’d have liked to see that. My only regret.’ I get the feeling he could be serious. He rummages around in his trouser pocket and pulls out a single bent cigarette, puts it to his lips, and then goes back to the pocket to look for a light.

‘I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. You know that one?’ I nod yes, because we did it this year in English. ‘William Ernest Henley. Most people take it to mean that having free will is the pinnacle of the human condition. But see, it’s also the thing we need to be the most careful of, little wolf.’ He finds his light, then sucks back on the cigarette like he’s been saving it for a week.

‘Your mother knows that, I reckon.’

The silence ticks by and I wonder if he’s finished. I don’t want him to be finished. When the cigarette is halfway smoked, he stubs it out carefully on the ground, blows on the end and puts it back in his pocket.

‘The good people stay close, girl, that’s how you know they’re the good people.’ And because it feels important to understand what he means, I ask if his wife wasn’t good people because she didn’t stay close. If he thinks things would have been different for him if she’d stayed and rolled the dice. Fought the fight. Shut the door to keep the rest of the world out and just lived in his madness with him.

Too late I realise it’s selfish and clumsy to talk to a man with no home about closing doors, but he looks at me long and hard and I know I’m going to remember those denim-coloured eyes for ever. Then he shakes his head slowly and smiles like he knows something.

‘I’m the one, little wolf. I’m the one who didn’t stay close.’

I look over at the wall where he’s pissed a house, a car, a wife, a life away, and I don’t need to ask him anything else. We sit there next to each other in silence, and I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I’m thinking how strange it is to finally meet the only person in the world that really knows who I am.

And then in a whoosh of air, he’s up.

‘Time to go. Business to do.’

I stand up and pass him back his blanket, then reach into the outside pocket of my backpack for the twenty-pound note Lou put there for emergencies. I hand it to him and hope he won’t be offended. He takes it, folds it in half lengthways and salutes me with it. Then he laughs and pushes it into the depths of one of his many pockets.