Her message is capped off with a rude sound effect. Not sure what she means by ‘closer to work’ since, being a BigSky employee, Shandy works in the Cloud. I think it means she likes the coffee shop near mine because they have beanbags and Moroccan waiters, and they tolerate her unicorn.

I go over to the window and smooth out the paper. It’s a centimetre-wide strip, only about ten centimetres long, and in tiny, neat handwriting it reads:

Intrusions have been traced. They have recordings and are reverse-engineering. If intruders identified, criminal charges could be forthcoming. Pls advise.

Hmm. I guess it could be a game? Or something to do with O’s security work, more likely. At least it’s not about me. I am getting paranoid.

OK. Shandy. I’m not sure what I’m going to say to her, because with all my new subscribers I know she’s going to go all entrepreneurial on me and rightly so – I just don’t know if I can handle business today. I take a shower and put on a tight wool hat to cover the state of what’s left of my hair, and I decide not to wait for her here because I don’t want her to run into O. I’m letting myself out of the front door of our building, feeling just a tiny bit better about things, when I spot Roman Pelka pretending to lock up a bike at a bike rack. I say ‘pretending’ because when he sees me he gets so flustered he tries to pick up the wrong bike – unless he really rides a Hello Kitty bicycle built for nine-year-olds.

Still, I find myself smiling. He’s all right, in a goofy, disjointed sort of way. He comes over to me, looking at the pavement and smiling; I can see his dimpled cheeks from here. He’s swinging a cloth carrier bag from one hand so that he looks like a sheepish schoolboy, and he doesn’t glance up at me until we’re almost on top of each other.

‘You caught me,’ he says. ‘I’ve been standing out here for half an hour trying to work out how to get this to you without looking stalkery or otherwise embarrassing you. Don’t look inside!’

He passes me the bag. Now I really want to look inside. I hope it’s not body parts or something.

‘You left it behind in the kebab shop. I wanted to get it back to you. I’m sorry I’m so childish. It’s a character flaw, well known in my family. I have four sisters and they all say I’m a hopeless wanker when it comes to . . . No, sorry, I’ve made a mess of this. Crikey, you look like the bottom of a river. Didn’t you get any sleep last night?’

I stare at him. ‘Are you even British?’ I snap.