But it wasn’t another voice mail and James Knox answered on the first ring. He didn’t actually say any words at first, but I did hear a lot of mmmpphh and phfffmmmth and some other weird, echoey noises. After a few seconds of that he did say hello, though. Actually, he said, hello, hello, hello, who’s this? So then I said hello back and he said hello again and I was so nervous I totally forgot how to talk.

But the funny thing was that James Knox seemed quite glad I’d called. Not that I could really understand too much of what he said at first, because he was shouty whispering really, really fast in a Scottish accent, but then he stopped for a second to take a breath so I decided to start making my speech from the back of the Thai menu to see what would happen. And what happened was that he stopped talking completely and started listening. So I kept going.

When I mentioned Mum’s name he goes, Sadie Fore—? Who...? Oh...um... Sadie... Sadie, well, okay. And then he didn’t say anything for a bit, like he might have been thinking. I’d finished my two lines and I didn’t want to mess things up, so I kept quiet, as well. Then he goes, Sadie Foreman you say, eh? And she’s got a kid, eh? It didn’t really seem like it was a good time to blurt out that yes she does and actually so might you and it’s me. So I just said yes and I’d sort of lost her and I just happened to find his number and no other responsible adults were answering so I wondered if he’d mind helping me out. Please. And thank you. It’s Norman.

It turned out I’d called at a pretty good time because the reason James had sounded quite happy to hear from me was that he needed my help as much as I needed his. And just so you know, I don’t reckon I ever would have dared to do what James asked me to do if I hadn’t been so scared. But it was getting really late and there was still no sign of Mum or Leonard, and every time I thought about them my tummy started doing flip-flops and not the good kind. So when James said, aye, he’d help me out, and thanks for considering him a responsible adult by the way, but that actually I might have to do him a small favor first, everything about stranger danger just went out the window and I wanted to cry with happiness. Actually, I did cry a bit and it wasn’t all for happiness, but I stuck my sleeve in my mouth to make sure he didn’t hear.

If I’d been a bit older, I might have thought that what James asked me to do for him was actually quite strange, which is what a few adult type of people pointed out to me later. Including James himself. But the only person I had to ask for advice was Jax. And even though he wasn’t really there and so I didn’t get a proper answer, I could guess what he would have said. Jump in! Jump in the deep end, Normie boy! Plus I was pretty sure he would somehow have got a message to me if James was what he called a dodgy geezer.