He was a bulky specimen – one of those men who looks fat until you give them a punch on the arm and realize that everything under their coat is as firm as a roll of carpet. He had a round head, broken nose and a moustache split by an old scar. He was wearing jeans and a bomber jacket; a little sliver of gold at his broad neck where a pendant on a chain disappeared into his collar. It was his boots that concerned me. The boots and the lack of rain on his clothes. The boots gleamed. The laces were triple knotted and there were little rough patches on the toes, but they had been polished with a precision and devotion that reeked of military training.

I sat back in my seat. You wouldn’t have known I was worried to look at me, but there was a definite jitteriness taking hold, settling on me like seed pods and dandelion seeds on a hot day – little irritants that wouldn’t let me settle. I tried to read the document again but I couldn’t focus and I became increasingly aware that if my new companion was here for me, the report was a big red flag. I put my papers away as quietly as I could, slipping the folder back into the bag and making a show of settling myself, hands folded in my lap, closing my eyes as if preparing for a little nap ahead of the next leg of the journey.

I found myself cursing Walt afresh. What did he actually expect me to do? What did he have for me? I tried to get my thoughts in order; tried to work out my own reasoning and motivation. It sounds daft but sometimes we get caught up in momentum, don’t we? We do something because it’s more interesting, more entertaining, than not doing it. I met up with Walt because I was feeling lost and he was a figure from the past who gave me a fleeting sense of stability. I agreed to help him out because I felt a bit sorry for him and because I was bored. When he gave me the little he was willing to share, I saw an opportunity to impress my increasingly distant bosses and perhaps be permitted to investigate further, curtailing my work with the Greenham Common protesters and permitting me to stop feeling like a cad whenever I had to look at myself in the mirror.