‘What?’

I felt stupid even saying it out loud.

‘What if it’s that Bennett bloke from school?’ I said, with heat. ‘What if he tried to knock me off my bike too?’

She gave me a strange look. Obviously thought I was being ridiculous. I was probably being ridiculous.

‘Ell,’ she said, ‘if it’s him, then I think you’d need more evidence before you start accusing him.’ I was surprised, having expected her to dismiss my paranoia.

She went on, gently placing her hand on my arm. ‘But look, you know how stretched the police are round here. You’ve seen the same reports I have. Let’s just assume it was kids and get the window fixed, yeah?’

I hesitated, knowing she was right. The local paper had been covered in screaming headlines a few weeks back about the low rates of arrest for robberies around here. Apparently, the police had almost stopped investigating minor crimes like that. This wasn’t even that serious. I had no real reason to think Bennett was behind this anyway. I was probably putting two and two together and coming up with a paranoid five.

Anya left the room, coming back in with my trainers in her hand. She had her sandals on now.

‘Well, we can sit here and wait with the wind blowing through the window, or we can clear it up and sort out a glazier.’

We got to work.

The glazier took hours to come. I insisted Anya go back to bed, which she reluctantly agreed to, then set up camp in the living room, with my iPad on my lap and the sound turned low.

It took no time to find Lee Bennett’s Facebook page. It was pretty much exactly what I’d expected. Selfies with his shirt off; posts with such gems of wisdom as ‘Mourinho really has fucking lost it now. Time to go’ and a couple of pictures with Tyler in them, mainly at football matches. He hadn’t made much effort over his settings, so I delved back a bit until I found some with a woman in them.

She was blonde, and delicate-looking with a pointy chin and large eyes. She and Bennett together, clearly on holiday, with tall cocktails, tans, and lots of flesh on show. Only one with her and Tyler, where he was sitting on her lap on a train and clearly reaching for something out of shot.

The thought of anything happening to Anya caused a tight feeling in my throat, not unlike the sensation just before you throw up. What if, for whatever reason, he was going after me and putting my wife in danger? He thought he knew me. Maybe he was incubating some perceived slight based on mistaken identity.