She managed something approximating a smile. ‘You’re a good teacher, Elliott,’ she said, ‘and you have the makings of an excellent one. Just don’t blow it by allowing this whole thing to get out of hand, okay? And make sure you report what has been going on.’

So, I did.

After school I walked to the police station on the other side of town and I reported both the incident on the bike, the brick through the window, and the complaint at school. I was processed by a harassed-looking middle-aged policewoman – who had evidently just spilled coffee on her pale jumper, judging by the angry expression and the cloth she was dabbing ineffectively at the stain the entire time we talked.

She wrote it all down, with the other hand, and told me she would be in touch with any information that she had to pass on. She didn’t seem overly interested.

I walked home, the exhaustion of the last few days pooling like sand in my limbs. But once home again I forced myself to take my sad, broken bike down to the bike shop in town to be mended. It wasn’t doing anything for my spirits, being without a means of getting around.

By the time I was home for the evening, I’d walked miles and felt both emotionally and physically battered.

I flopped down on the sofa in front of Pointless and within minutes my eyelids were getting heavy. I’d just have five minutes …

The next thing I knew, my phone was chirruping from somewhere and combining with the EastEnders theme tune. My mouth tasted like an old welly and my neck was aching from having slept at an unfamiliar angle.

I grabbed the phone and it fell onto the floor. It stopped ringing and I picked it up to see it was Anya who had been calling.

It rang again and I answered quickly.

‘Hey,’ I said, ‘where are you?’

‘I’m at Mum and Dad’s.’ Her voice sounded thick and muffled, like she was ill.

‘You didn’t say you were going over.’ I couldn’t stop the grumpy tone from worming its way into my voice.

‘I know,’ she said quietly. ‘Spur-of-the-moment decision.’ There was a pause. ‘You’re welcome to come too, of course.’

I thought for a minute. I very much did want to be cooked a lovely meal by Julia and not to spend the evening alone. But without the car it was a pain to get to Lathebridge, which she knew. She’d have come all the way back from London on the train, picked up the car from the station, then essentially driven past Casterbourne to get to her parents’ house. Without mentioning it.

‘What’s going on?’ I blurted out.

She gasped a laugh on the other end of the phone.

‘What do you mean, what’s going on?’