‘Nice to meet you, Matty.’ He laid a hand on his chest. ‘Gegsy. Let me know how you get on with it.’ He sat down and opened a magazine, a man holding a guitar over his shoulder on the cover. It seemed to be a dismissal. Back over towards the gate, The Man in White, now fully dressed, had just come out and turned right towards the boating lake.

‘OK, see you,’ said Matty, and swiftly descended the slope, after him.

***

The Man in White was walking through the Heath, up Parliament Hill. Matty followed behind, about ten paces away, hands in pockets, shorts still wet and chafing the inside of both thighs. Spying.

He really could be an angel. The other morning in the library, Matty had been reading about ghosts and angels, and came across the angel of death. Michael. An archangel was like the team captain, and he came down at the hour of someone’s death, listened to their confession and then took them up to heaven. There was a painting of him, with golden curly hair and armour and wings. The Man in White didn’t look anything like that – right now, he was stopping at an ice-cream van – but angels probably moved with the times. After all, the one from the old film had been a WAAF.

The man stood by the bin, peeling open the wrapper. It looked like a Mini Milk. He glanced up and Matty swiftly crouched down, put a hand in the grass, slicing lines into the middle of the blades with a nail. Maybe The Man in White went swimming at the Ponds just in case someone drowned, and then he could scoop their soul up and lob it into heaven. If he was the angel of death, then at least he’d be a witness. At least there’d be someone who’d be able to say yes, your dad is dead.

Matty looked up again. The man was walking away.

They came out of the Heath past Kenwood House, onto a wide road lined with cars. The man crossed over to the opening of a smaller residential street with a low gate by a green cabin and two signs saying PRIVATE ROAD. He paused there for quite a while, before the gate lifted up and he walked under.

Quick. Matty got to a couple of metres from the gate, scratching an arm, watching him walk away. The gate had lowered again. It would be easy just to duck under it. Please tell me if you are an archangel.

‘Can I help you?’ A security guard was calling over, beginning to stand up.

‘No,’ said Matty, too quietly to be heard, and walked away very quickly in the other direction.