I got the hint. I was on my own.

‘Wolfie, so when you say . . .’ My throat constricted unexpectedly, and I had to turn it into a cough and try again. ‘Does Lou . . . Well, are you sure it’s OK for you to be out at this time of night?’

If what happened next was a stare-down, which I suspected it was, Wolfie definitely won, because after about two seconds I couldn’t hack the pressure and my eyelids started rapid blinking on their own. Her reaction was the last thing I expected, though, because she burst out laughing, which caused a flurry of crumbs to drift off the table and on to the floor. I was gutted for Gentleman, missing out on such easy pickings.

‘Of course. God, yeah. I’ve been catching the Tube by myself since I was eleven.’ The laugh had blown her fringe off her face and the sight of those eyes made my gut lurch again. ‘It’s all good, seriously. What I said before, I didn’t mean Lou doesn’t know I’m out. I just meant she doesn’t know I . . .’ She stopped and it looked like she was choosing her next words carefully. ‘I just didn’t exactly tell her where I was going, that’s all.’

I saw her glance down at the newspaper, and followed her gaze to the photo of me. I realised those purple felt-tip additions had probably improved on how I’d really looked that morning. And now.

‘She doesn’t know you’ve gone all Columbo and tracked down your long-lost uncle, you mean?’ The word felt strange on my tongue. Uncle. Never had one, never been one. Only a few minutes ago I’d just been another guy with a skinful; now I was a whole different person. Somehow the thought of being an uncle made me feel more adult than the fake news of being forty-two. The microwave pinged behind me and the smell of warm, rich chocolate wafted across the kitchen.

‘Yeah. No. I mean, I’ve got no idea who Columbo is, but Lou hasn’t seen the thing in the paper, no. And she’s got no idea I’ve found my . . . you.’ She moved and I thought she was about to reach for my hand, but she just placed hers on the worn timber table like we were squaring off for a game of knuckles.

‘Seriously.’ She splayed her fingers without taking her eyes off me. ‘Don’t worry about it. It was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing – that’s why I didn’t tell Lou I was coming. I just didn’t want her worrying.’ She slumped back and shrugged. ‘Parents. You know how it is.’

The thought of my sister (who I’d last seen crying in the back of a taxi heading down the Holloway Road when she was only a few years older than Wolfie) being a parent hit me even harder than the uncle thing. Thankfully, George and Gentleman blew back into the kitchen like a two-headed dervish for a perfect distraction.