He stood up and lifted the weights above his head. He gripped a smaller dumbbell in each hand and pulled them in towards his body – in, out, in, out. He sat on the rowing machine and rowed, back and forth, back and forth. This was how he filled the days, with monotonous exercises that didn’t require thought and at the same time obliterated thought. All he could think about was the pain in his arms and legs and chest; the ache in his back and shoulders. When he was straining to lift a barbell above his head for the fortieth time he didn’t think about Kirsty. He thought about the strain on his body; the bead of sweat that trickled down his forehead and hung above his eye, threatening to fall.

He wasn’t trying to make himself strong. He wasn’t preparing himself for a fight. He was just trying to stop himself thinking. Because thinking hurt too much.

Up, down. In, out. Back, forth. Push-ups, sit-ups, squat thrusts. Crunching his stomach muscles. Forth, back. Out, in. Down, up.

And repeat.

Sometimes he would drop a weight by accident, or fall onto the floor himself, and as the bang reverberated through the flat he would tense, hurting himself as he pulled his muscles inwards, trying to shrink, an animal instinct to hide taking over. He would crouch there in fear, waiting for the banging to start, or a knock at the door. Sometimes the banging came, the sound of a broom knocking against the ceiling, going on for perhaps ten minutes without pause. Sometimes nothing happened and, eventually, after sitting rock-still for five minutes, he would relax and wait for his muscles to stop cramping At such times, he always needed a cigarette. He lit up, inhaled, exhaled, flicked ash into an overflowing ashtray, a graveyard of cigarettes that he never emptied, filling the flat with a charred nicotine stink.

Up down in out back forth.

Every day.

It was a mobile number. He wouldn’t have expected anything else. He imagined a bear-like man at the other end, cradling a tiny mobile phone in his huge paw. They would listen to him and laugh and put the phone down. But he wouldn’t give up. He knew he could persuade them to do it.

He held the receiver in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He dialled the number that Mike had given him and listened to it ring and ring. He expected it to cut to a voicemail message at any moment, but it kept ringing. He was about to put the phone down and try again – thinking there must be some technical problem at the other end – when the ringing ceased.

‘Hello?’

Jamie took a deep breath, and couldn’t think of what to say.

‘Hello?’ the man repeated, confused and a little irritated.