And, to my surprise, it had been wonderful. Just for a moment the fog lifted and I found myself in a place of true goodness and warmth. I’d forgotten this existed. Before the meal Dorothy said grace, and when she added, ‘… and this year, Prudence is in our thoughts and prayers,’ I felt my eyes filling with tears. There are people like this in the world, I thought. I must remember this.

I arrived early at the surgery. The waiting room was empty except for a receptionist who was busy at her computer. Nothing was momentous about my surroundings—it was a dentist’s, for heaven’s sake. After signing in I sat down and looked at the reading matter. Amongst the magazines I spotted a local paper, the Hertfordshire Mercury.

Something stirred in me. I thought I’d got over my addiction. Meeting Pam had spooked me. What I’d been doing had been mad. Not only mad, but dangerous. Sooner or later, somebody would find me out.

Briefly, in Catford, I’d glimpsed something resembling normality. Curled up in Dorothy’s armchair, surrounded by children and laughter, I’d been shamed by what I’d done. Throughout Christmas Day her family had cared for me so tenderly, as if I were ill. I pictured their reaction if I’d told them about the little black dress. They would have been horrified. It didn’t bear thinking about.

Besides, my escapades had hardly been a success. The only result so far had been an accusation of adultery and the acquisition of a cloying and fathomlessly boring new friend whom I spent all day trying to avoid. Plus the humiliation of a sweet man who was going through hell.

Funny, then, that I was leafing through the paper, searching for ‘Family Announcements’. I just couldn’t stop myself. This time, I thought, there’d be no danger of discovery. I was in Hertfordshire, eight miles from home. Nobody I knew would go to a funeral here. Surely I’d be safe?

There was a whole page of ‘Deaths’; Potters Bar seemed to have a lethal effect on its inhabitants. Besides, it was the height of the flu season, and there were a lot of geriatrics about; on my walk from the station I’d spotted six mobility scooters. Most of the dead were men, of course, males being the frailer sex. I gazed at their photos, mostly elderly, mostly smiling. Much loved husband, father and grandfather. I thought: at least they’d been spared that morning’s news: the Isis bombing of a children’s hospital in Kabul.

‘Morbid, aren’t you?’

I looked up. A man was sitting beside me. I hadn’t noticed him come in.

He pointed to the dead people’s photos. ‘Who puts this stuff in the paper?’

‘These announcements?’

‘I’ve never known anyone who’s done it, have you?’

‘No.’