The letters continued to take up a lot of the room in my head, but there were also regular appearances from Wolfie, looking so much like the young version of my sister it was like they’d been sliced off the same loaf of bread (and did that make me the mouldy crust of that scenario?). And, of course, I thought about Lou. Heckling, shoulder-barging thoughts that weren’t just passing through, because they were actually inconvenient and inescapable memories. It was all quite exhausting and sleep didn’t seem to be the answer, so it was a conundrum. An enigma. A perfect Danny Mulberry-shaped problem.

I lay in bed staring out of the window as first light squeezed through a chink in the clouds, and amused myself by noting that, this time, I really was witnessing the crack of dawn. It was the earliest I’d woken up yet and, with an unusually clear head, I pondered, that was almost certainly connected to the fact I hadn’t gone to the Lamb and Flag the previous evening – despite my usual once or twice weekly visits having somewhat ramped up since the arrival of Lou and Wolfie.

After rereading the letters Pete had left with an increasingly sinking stomach, I’d spent the better part of the day sitting on my bed scribbling nonsense and aiming screwed-up sheets of paper at the kettle. Come five o’clock there’d been many bulls-eyes, George’s exercise book was ransacked, and the bench had disappeared under a sea of paper balls (and a few aeroplanes).

I’d headed out with every intention of washing away the wasted day with a few beers, but had stopped off in a cab drivers’ cafe for egg and chips. By the time I’d drunk three cups of tea and revisited every one of those letters yet again in my head, imagining the lonely, nutty, complicated, angry, sad, hopeful lives of the people who’d written them, the thought of standing in a crowded pub drinking pints and talking bollocks had somehow lost its appeal. I’d wandered home and gone straight to bed, early and restless. The last thing I remember before finally drifting off to sleep was thinking that I still hadn’t a clue what I was going to say to any of those people, but the egg and chips had hit the spot.

I rolled over and looked at the time. Just gone six and the cavalcade of thoughts was already on the move. Almost before I realised what was happening, I was out of bed. I floated out of my body and up to the ceiling, and watched in amazement as I tied my laces and shrugged on a hoodie. Was I sleep-walking? Was I dead? Was I actually going for a morning constitutional?

It was still semi-dark when I pushed open the back door as quietly as I could and gave Gentleman a soft nudge with my toe. He opened one eye and looked at me like I’d interrupted the keynote speech at a bone convention, but he hauled himself up and groggily followed me around the back of the house and up the side path, no questions asked. Stone-cold superstar, that guy.