The traffic was light. Danny used the same one-way system he had used the previous night. The boarded shopfronts were somehow more melancholy in the daylight. London Road took him to the outskirts where bookies, second-hand furniture stores and takeaways seemed to repeat in a three-shop pattern. The site for a snooker club where he had spent much of his youth drifted past on his left and as he rounded a corner created by the emergence of the River Dour he could see cars parked tightly together, each of their windscreens showing their asking price in a bold font – the place he had bought his first car. This was a town of memories for him, the place he had grown up, the place he had become someone: the local lad captaining the local football team.

Now he would have to add another memory.

He slowed as he passed the paper mill. The gate he had walked through appeared on his left. This was where he had killed a man.

Despite it being just before 7 a.m. there was some activity. A white van had pulled just inside the gates and two men hung near it, both clutching their breakfasts in distinctive takeaway bags. Beyond them he could see three other people in high-visibility vests. They were further into the site, closer to the back, closer to the house he had left. It was the only snapshot Danny could get as he rolled past but it was a snapshot of normality.

A petrol station was next on his left and he pulled in and stepped out into the cold. He kept his head down as he walked away from his car and onto the pavement, back towards the site. The white van had been moved; it was still close to the entrance but now it was side-on and its livery identified the occupants as electricians. The same men were still by it, their drinks steaming visibly. Danny was close enough to catch a snippet of the conversation: ‘Lost the power to the lighting on the site again. Fucking rats just like last time. They come out the river and chew the shit out of the place! I tell you what, son, don’t be putting your Maccy Dee’s down for a fucking moment!’ The man doing the talking laughed too loud as he slapped his mate, then laughed louder still as he caused his friend to slosh his coffee. Then the loudmouth swung his arm dramatically up towards the floodlight. ‘Soon get ’em up and running, boys, just as soon as you pull your fingers out your arse!’