DYER’S FIRST WILD THOUGHTS were tinged with pity. Rougetel’s story could be ascribed to one word: cannabis. Dyer had known several casualties among his university contemporaries, and plenty more in Rio. Freelance mendicants were a common sight up and down the back trails of Latin America. It’s one of the things you can do if you’re damaged or if you’ve experienced heartbreak: you can roam.

He had a quick vision of a wandering singer who haunted the bus stop below the favela, delivering serenades to the queue in a despairing or ecstatic tenor. Rougetel offered up harmonious snatches of knowledge: he was an intellectual and spiritual nomad, reclusive, who had renounced the ordinary agitations of life to live in libraries and books.

But Rougetel didn’t have the manner of an addict, or the air of someone whose experiences had broken him. If he was on drugs or suffering a breakdown, there was no outward sign of it. On the contrary, he seemed, to Dyer, unnaturally coherent. He could smile at himself. At Dyer. He had the lucidity of someone with a clear conscience. He seemed incisive, open, aware. Not out of his wits at all.

Dyer asked for the bill. He had lost his time sense. They’d been talking for more than two hours. ‘I have to collect my son.’

‘You have a son?’

‘Come with me, why don’t you? He’s at the Phoenix.’

Rougetel’s deep-set eyes with their dark brown irises looked at him. ‘All right.’ He reached for his hat and his rod. ‘I’d like that.’

Across the café, his coat on a chair, was a research fellow from Lincoln. Dyer couldn’t remember his name. He eyed Rougetel in a curious way that made Dyer feel protective.

Dyer, after paying Miguel, picked up the backpack for Rougetel to put on. It surprised him how little it weighed.

He opened the door for his old friend and they stepped out into Market Street.

Inside the Lisboa, Dyer had been a silent listener. Here in the street, his questions tumbled out. It fascinated him to know where Rougetel ate, slept, how he funded himself, filled the day.

They walked down Cornmarket into St Giles, as Rougetel described his circuit.

‘It would only take you a week to get used to,’ he said in his sincere, serious voice.