He should never have done this. What on earth had he been thinking? It was perfectly apparent that he was going to learn the square root of bugger all from Jeffrey Kinsella. All he was doing was causing him more distress. The only thing that salved David’s conscience was that Jeffrey was highly unlikely to remember that David had ever visited him.

David said, ‘Beth can’t come today.’

He stood up, unsure of what to say. Jeffrey Kinsella was staring up at him, his eyes almost pleading. It must be a lonely world he inhabited. As he moved towards the door, David heard movement behind him. Turning round, he saw that Jeffrey had abandoned the picture of Beth on his chair and was trying to climb onto a chair below the shelf on the far wall.

David asked, ‘Do you want something, Jeffrey?’

Jeffrey pointed at the shelf.

David said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll get it for you.’

The shelf only had three items on it. There was a picture of an older woman bearing a striking resemblance to Beth, whom David guessed must have been her mother. Next to it was a small carriage clock of the silver wedding gift variety and at the far end was a padded brown A5 envelope. David reached up towards the picture of Jeffrey’s wife, but the old man shook his head determinedly and instead pointed to the end of the shelf where the envelope lay.

David tried to hand it to Jeffrey, but he immediately pushed it away.

When David went to replace it on the shelf, the old man shook his head. ‘No, no, no, no. From Beth.’

David tried to hand it to him again, but Jeffrey wasn’t having any of it.

David said, ‘You want me to have it.’

Jeffrey smiled at him and immediately returned to his seat, his gaze firmly fixed on the window. David might as well not have been in the room.

On the outside of the envelope someone had scrawled the word ‘Bailsgrove’ in thick black marker pen. David opened it to see a clear plastic finds bag containing a single small red USB stick.