Helen came to relieve me for my lunch break. I was reluctant to stop observing Andrew and daughter, so I took my time leaving until Andrew went to pay for a book by the till. While he was doing that I left the shop through the front door, stopping to smile at his daughter, who was flicking through the magazine section. Out on the street I crossed the road and leaned against a shop front, lighting a cigarette I didn’t want. After a couple of minutes they came out together. They didn’t spot me. I was typical, a poseur, an extra, who started to follow them as they walked together down the road. Andrew leaned down to say something right by her ear and she moved her head so it brushed against his chin, and when she did this he put his hand on the back of her head and ran it down between her shoulders towards her waist.

Incest! I thought, and then worried I had been too harsh, for the daughters of the intelligentsia raised in London are so European they may as well be French and they grow up used to kissing their parents, kissing strangers, dealing with propositions from adults on buses. Andrew turned around and scanned the street, looking past me, before he rested his hand on her shoulder for a second, put it back by his side, and carried on walking down the road. It was possible, I realised then, that they were not father and daughter.

When they reached the Hoxton Hotel, she held his arm and pointed towards the door. He shrugged, and they went in. I waited a minute, then followed.

*