Sure it needed some work, he’d said with a car salesman’s smile, a little TLC to get it back on the road. And sure, it’s a little effort now, but it will be worth it, cars like this are becoming rarer and rarer, he said. Also, and here he dropped his voice and took a quick look around to make sure we weren’t being overheard, he could envisage a not-too-distant future where a car such as the very one I was looking at, properly restored, would be worth considerably more than the minuscule asking price.

‘Can I do this myself?’ I asked. ‘Given that I don’t know anything about cars.’

He didn’t even miss a beat. I got the feeling he never blinked.

‘Sure,’ he’d said. ‘Sure, sure. All the information’s online. You can find second-hand spares there too. And you don’t need a raised ramp or anything.’

I called Mark Sattler who runs the car pool back at the station. He came out later that day, eventually agreed that it was probably doable, and grudgingly said he may, and he stressed the may, be able to help out occasionally if needed. Two days later I had it delivered to the lock-up I’d rented off the Marktplaats website. When the truck pulled away I wondered just what on earth I was doing.

The lock-up door rattles as I haul it open and flip on the light. The bonnet’s up, a patient waiting for the surgeon, and I take a minute to check over everything I’d done yesterday. Satisfied that it was all good I turn to the final job: I need to attach the throttle body to the air induction system, and attach the air induction system to the air filter. Then it should be good to go. In the end the therapist was right, there’s something about working with your hands that changes your perspective. She’d said that it can actually alter your brain chemistry in such a way that old patterns can be disrupted.

‘Nice car. Rent please.’

I turn to see Mark Liu silhouetted in the doorway. He’s second-gen Chinese, his parents fleeing the Cultural Revolution to scrape a living with one of the first Chinese restaurants in the city. How he’s ended up renting out these places is a mystery, but not one I’ve been overly inclined to delve into, not least because the rents he charges are well below market rate. As long as payment’s in cash. My wallet splits open, and I count the notes and hand them over.

‘So, how far off are you?’

‘I reckon about half an hour. I just need to connect up the throttle body.’

I marvel at the fact that five months ago I didn’t know what a throttle body was. In fact, the words ‘throttle’ and ‘body’ usually had a whole other meaning for me.