The fireman just shakes his head and holds fast. I can see Leah on the far side of the fire engine, the heat distorting the air between us so she looks wobbly, unreal. I can’t see if she has Kush with her. I think of the electrics, and for a crushing moment realize it’s my fault. They’d been faulty and I’d left them on. With Kush inside. Two men direct the hose, strafing the aft of the boat. The flames roar and crackle, and when the water hits them they hiss too. But the water does little more than dampen the flames down; they seem to come back with increased ferocity. I turn away, back off from the fireman and run behind the fire engine towards Leah’s boat. But as I round the truck I can see she’s standing there alone, Kush not with her, watching my boat burn and hoping the fire doesn’t reach hers. She looks so old suddenly, so old and alone, like she’s the last human on the planet, staring into the cataclysm which took us all.

I step beside her and she turns to look at me and just shakes her head. After a few moments she reaches out a hand and clasps mine, holding it tight. I look at the flames and see something, a shape in the darkness between two flames dancing on the roof. It’s gone in a flash, but it appears again. Then again and again.

It looks like a black wolf, head thrown back, fur standing proud on the back of its neck, as if howling at the moon.

A spark becomes its eye, before it’s gone in an instant.

‘Jaap?’

I don’t know how long I’ve been here. The firefighters left, the fire engine groaning away into the night, Leah back on board her boat, safe as the flames were doused before they got there, and the faces in the windows gone back to their lives, their beds, their dreams. And I’m here sitting on the concrete edge of the canal, my feet hanging over dark water. I notice suddenly I’m shivering. I turn to see Sabine standing close by.

‘Jaap, oh my god. Are you okay? I was calling and you didn’t answer …’