‘Jaap, there’s something I want to talk to you about.’

She sounds different to usual, flatter somehow.

‘Sure, what’s up?’ There’s a stab of fear in my gut.

‘It’d be better in person, maybe we could meet up?’

My antennae are twirling at this point, but I know not to push it over the phone. We agree I’ll drop by her place in IJburg later on today. I hang up feeling queasy, because I’ve got a terrible feeling I know what she’s going to say.

Joos Wilders is first. I check the address, which seems like a retirement complex out near Kasteel Brederode, a building that was of strategic importance in the Hook and Cod wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth century, but has now been relegated to a national monument.

I lock up, get in the car. Then I get out, clean the shit off the bonnet. Leah’s still on deck and I wave as I go past, but I don’t think she can even see me, her focus entirely on the vehicle. It’s like she’s deconstructing it in her head, working out which bits she could cannibalize for the sake of art. I’m going to have to watch her.

My route’s the A10, then A4, before I swing onto the A9 northbound, which funnels me up through expanses of reclaimed land. The sun’s out, and it’s an almost perfect autumn day with a fragile light blue sky and seventeenth-century clouds. My interior weather is not as good; it feels tense like the gathering of a storm. It’s not long before I spot the sign for Sunrise Homes, an arrow pointing to the next right. Sunrise. Who are they kidding? It should be Sunset. I take the turn and motor down a lane that ends in a parking space next to a field. On the other side, buildings are dotted around some manicured grounds, and there are old people everywhere: gardening, sitting on benches, chatting in groups. They don’t look all that unhappy. I resolve not to mention the Sunrise/Sunset thing to anyone.

The reception desk has one of those old-fashioned bells that looks a little bit like a breast, and you have to hit the nipple with the palm of your hand. Next to it a vase oozes with obscenely voluptuous tropical flowers. A stack of leaflets promise a wonderland of fun for anyone lucky enough to live the Sunrise Lifestyle. There’s a distinct lack of receptionist, though, even after I’ve slapped the bell up a bit.