Of course I knew how crazy it seemed to suffer the eccentricities of that damp, draughty shed, but the truth was I’d loved it from the moment I first barged my shoulder into the door. The occasional leak, some persistent mushroom growth and an army of daddy-long-legs in the rafters aside, it was actually pretty bloody cosy. A genuine Danny Mulberry-shaped part of the world; the Belsize Park version of a musty studio flat with a shared bathroom in Kilburn. Just about what I deserve.

But that night, as I idly swung a teabag around my fingers waiting for the kettle to boil, something about my little castle felt off. I ducked my head to get a sightline through the window back to the house. Normally, upstairs I’d see the dim orange glow of George’s nightlight, the brighter one from Dom’s room as he read, sometimes into the early hours, and the kitchen light downstairs, which stayed on all night.

‘I just like to know I’m not going to kill myself by tripping over your dog, if I come down for a glass of water,’ Dom said. But I knew he left it on for me. Like maybe one night I’d creep over to the house wrapped in my superhero duvet and slip back into the downstairs bedroom of crisp box history.

Now, though, in addition to the usual lights in the house, there was another one on upstairs in Wolfie’s room, and downstairs a very faint glow straining through a narrow gap in the curtains in Lou’s room. It made for a completely different view to the one I was so used to. Everyone was safely tucked into their little boxes, even Gentleman, parked halfway to everywhere should there be a call to action. But I imagined, like me, at least some people under that roof over there would be pondering the strangeness of the situation. Although probably not George; he was more likely to be pondering a proposal of marriage.

As per Dr Spooner’s suggestions to calm a racing mind, I focused on the job at hand. But even though I tried to concentrate on mugs and spoons and kettles and teabags, being in the moment is definitely not as easy as it sounds. I was able to distract myself for a good thirty seconds as I mindfully stirred my tea, then another few by weighing up the pros and cons of trying to rescue the biscuit I’d dropped behind the milk crate a few nights before. But then, without warning, like driving through a dark forest out into a clearing, there it was.

No distractions, no escape. A cold hard fact in its Sunday best.

Lou was back.

From somewhere a long, long way behind me, I heard a young boy’s voice. Put up your dukes, he said.

15

Wolfie

Be careful what you wish for, they say. Well, that. A thousand times that, because even though I don’t need Dr Google to tell me that tracking down my uncle was some kind of thinly veiled cry for help, once things get rolling it doesn’t matter whether I really even wanted it in the first place. We’re talking your classic runaway train, and I’m not in control of any of it. Not any more.