Today, however, she found herself driving along the eastern side of Hyde Park in the direction of Edgware Road or, rather, stuck in a convoy of dozens of other cars, buses and taxis.

‘You’d think they could set up another lane,’ she said, shaking her head as she stretched her neck, trying to see further along the road to what the hold-up might be. ‘For people like me, I mean.’

‘And what kind of person are you?’ asked her ghost, who was seated in the passenger seat with a shoe box on her lap, into the lid of which a series of holes had been punched earlier by Beverley, using a fork and a stabbing motion reminiscent of Norman Bates when he surprises Marion Crane in the shower and has no intention of simply handing her a loofah. The action had utterly terrified the box’s occupant, who had not experienced such extraordinary violence since the Polish–Ukrainian War of 1919, and he immediately took comfort in the presence of three After Eights.

‘I pay an awful lot of taxes, dear,’ replied Beverley. ‘As does George. And this car isn’t designed to stall. If there was an extra lane, say, just for those who could afford it, well, I’d be happy to pay whatever charge was imposed. Driving seems to me the only form of transportation where everyone, from the well-off to the hoi polloi, is thrown in together with no possibility of separation. Who are all these people anyway? What are they doing on the roads at this time of the morning?’

‘Just regular Londoners, I expect,’ said the ghost, who had been dragged away from her second day of writing in what Beverley had claimed was an emergency.

‘Well, speaking as a mother, it’s a huge inconvenience,’ she sighed, pressing her hand on the horn for twenty seconds, hoping this might move things along. In the car in front, a small boy, aged no more than six or seven, turned around in the back seat and gave her the finger. ‘Did you see that?’ asked Beverley in outrage. ‘Did you see what he just did?’

‘Perhaps he thinks that blowing your horn won’t make things move any faster,’ suggested the ghost.

‘Why isn’t a boy of that age in school anyway?’ asked Beverley, ignoring this remark.

The line of cars began to move at last and she pressed her foot on the accelerator, inching forward so the front of her Audi and the bumper of the Prius ahead were practically kissing. When the lights turned red once more, she uttered a profanity and pressed the horn again. This time, the little boy raised himself in the back seat, lowered his trousers and presented her with his bare bottom, wiggling it back and forth in great delight, and she looked away.