It was pushing ten p.m. before I did more than glance up from the big sheaf of papers on the plastic-topped table. I’ll admit to feeling halfway between a maverick and a bloody fool as I sat there. I didn’t know whether I’d got into something important or irrelevant so it was hard to know whether I was engaged in an important operation or on my way to humour somebody I’d once been fond of. I’d got soaked on the mad dash across London – doubling back on myself and twice changing clothes in pub toilets before slipping onto the train at Waterloo: an artsy-looking woman in her late twenties – short ruffled red-brown hair, plum-coloured raincoat and a flowery skirt stopping an inch or two above the knee. I’d added a nose stud and some big bangles and was carrying a thick carpet bag. I looked like somebody heading home from the city to see aged, parochial parents. Nobody tried to talk to me. It would have been clear at a glance that I was absolutely transfixed on the reading material on the table.