The other thing was, being between jobs with a tidy fruit machine jackpot stashed in those trainers under my bed meant I had an abundance of free time, which had given me way too many opportunities to think about what Dom had said that night after Wolfie had gone. The thing about family. His words had triggered something in my memory, and even though it took its sweet time, it chipped away and two days later, after another failed run at the veggie patch, three full-price Stellas and a packet of dry-roasted nuts, it finally broke through.

It was when I was really young, before Lou even, and my father had been reading me a story one night. My parents were like chalk and cheese when it came to bedtime stories; my mother was all crazy voices and faces and tickling of ribs, but my father was calm and measured and made you feel like every word was about to reveal a secret trove of fascinating facts. When he put the book down, I remember him looking at me for the longest time. Then he said, ‘You know, Danny, I wasn’t anybody until I was your father. Nothing matters more to me, don’t ever forget that.’

I have no idea if I’d ever thought about it again after that minute (I suspect not), but when I leaned my head back and emptied the last of the dry-roasteds down my throat, the fully formed question that landed like a bomb in my guts was: who have I been all these years while I haven’t been Lou’s brother?

Dom and George got me at a weak moment, is what I’m saying.

Something else an abundance of time does is completely wipe out any justification for not doing something you don’t want to do. So when Dom had an unexpected patient-free afternoon and he decided that, since I’d already agreed, there was no time like the present to take a trip over to Tottenham to visit my sister, I had no recourse whatsoever. It was complete bollocks, of course, because half the women of a certain age in London know Dom’s booked up a year in advance, so I knew full well he’d engineered the time off for the specific purpose of casually upending my life. Albeit with the best intentions.

He brushed off my pleas of scratchy throats and looming migraines as if I were the liar that I was. Even when I asked him, a bit crankily (a final, desperate tactical measure), whether in all conscience he thought it was a good idea to meddle in other people’s family business, he just said, ‘Actually, I think it’s a bloody good job someone’s around to do it for you.’ It was a fair call.

Riding low in the passenger seat of Dom’s Audi, I contemplated the passing scenery with a dry mouth and a sense of impending doom. There was a moment of mild excitement when we passed the Camden police station and I thought I might catch a glimpse of Officer Hanley – she of the lovely brown eyes and swingy bottom – in the line of duty, but no such luck. When we got to George’s school, he was beside himself at being picked up half an hour early, and it went next level when he found out where we were going. He hadn’t stopped firing questions since he’d got in the car.