Jordan turns to look out the window on the other side.

She notices they are driving through dark backstreets that she doesn’t recognise. After fifteen minutes, they turn onto a dual carriageway. Up ahead to her right she sees a desolate, dark waste ground. The driver indicates right and turns into it.

‘What is this place?’ asks Jordan.

‘I don’t know.’

The surface is littered with rubbish and rocky debris from buildings long ago abandoned. One is still standing and the driver is heading toward it. The outside is lit up with strings of garden lights draped across the front to make it somehow more appealing.

‘I think it’s one of them pop-up restaurants,’ she tells Jordan.

The driver pulls up outside.

‘This is it, then?’ asks Elaine.

The driver nods.

Elaine looks across at the building. There are three concrete steps up to an old door with peeling varnish. The entire building looks like the remains of an old seventies two-storey office or storage unit. The windows are covered, but she can see a trace of light stealing through a crack in the curtains.

‘All right, Jord. This is us.’ She tries to sound convincing, but this isn’t quite the fancy restaurant she was anticipating.

They get out, stand at the steps and watch as the taxi drives off.

She hears soothing classical music coming from inside the building, and feels a sense of relief.

‘Hear that?’ she says.

Jordan’s hood is up and she cannot see his face in the gloom. She pulls his hood down and fixes his hair.

‘It’s a bit weird, Mum.’

‘It’ll be fine, baby. Let’s go up. It’s a pop-up restaurant. London’s very pricey, you know, for rents and all that.’

‘Why’s no one else here?’

Elaine is thinking the same thing. ‘They must all be inside.’

She climbs the steps and pushes the door open. It creaks and a bright white beam of light shines in her eyes. From his correspondence Elaine has come to understand Ben has a sense of humour of sorts, but this is something else.

‘Wait here a moment, Jordan,’ she says.

She hesitates, unsure if she should go inside, but the throb of the concealed bruise on her right eye chides her. She is done with the likes of Frank. It’s time to move on.

Her eyes adjust to the light. She has no idea what to expect. But it certainly isn’t this. There are no people: no diners; no waiters or waitresses. The light is coming from what looks like a floor-standing studio lamp. There is an old kitchen table with a video camera on top. The floor is covered in a plastic tarpaulin that leads all the way to a stainless-steel freezer in the shadows beyond.

It is all so random.

‘Over here,’ says a reassuring voice.

‘What you playing at, you silly bugger?’

‘Come see. Smile at the camera.’