He closed his phone and dropped it on the bed. He wondered what Alexa was doing now: whether she’d already left the house for her dad’s place in Wimbledon. Ben decided it was too early to text her. He’d do it when he got back from his walk.

Right now, he needed food. He stuffed his phone into his back pocket and then skipped down the stairs, to find Pete at the kitchen table.

‘Hi,’ Pete said, looking up from a copy of the Guardian.

‘Just going to have some toast and then I’m ready when you are, mate,’ Ben replied.

‘We’re out of bread,’ Pete said, without looking up.

There was nothing like a stomp up a very steep hill to blow the cobwebs away – or rather, to help Ben forget that for a large part of today, he had been imprisoned inside the same four walls, with limited prospects of escape. When he and Pete returned, their ears a little pink – it had been blustery at the top of Telegraph Hill – Ben felt restored, if also knackered. He took the stairs back up to his room at a plod and lay down on top of his double bed.

He was dimly aware that his room was chaos. Laundry tumbled from a basket in the corner. On his desk were piles of thumbed magazines and pamphlets from exhibitions; a tangle of cables and USB sticks; balled-up socks, some paired, some not. On the floor were more clothes – plenty of sports kit, which might explain the slightly musty smell – plus a pair of football boots, crusted with mud and blades of mulchy grass, and lots of books. He closed his eyes to shut it all out.

He’d told Pete the full story, in the end, because he was still rather distracted by it all. After a few minutes of laughter – ‘Sorry, mate, it’s too funny!’ – Pete had agreed it was an extraordinary coincidence and sympathized with Ben’s (growing) concern that he might, indeed, have simply forgotten several months of his life. Noticing that his friend had grown rather melancholy, Pete had geed Ben up by asking about Alexa.

‘You like her, though?’ he’d asked, gruffly. Pete didn’t really do feelings.

Ben had duly muttered his own awkward reply.

‘Yeah, I do. She’s really quick. And kind of high-powered at work, I think.’ He’d added, more loudly, ‘Plus, she’s really fit.’

Pete had raised his eyebrows, appreciatively. ‘Sounds good, man. Sounds good.’ A pause. ‘So, what will you do about the housemate? Is it going to be a problem?’

Ben had paused. A group of teenagers were daring each other to run at full pelt down the hill until they all, inevitably, fell over like dominos.