Home. A long night-tube ride to Tottenham and the shitty flat I share with four semi-strangers. The place with the peeling veneer flooring, the mouldy fridge cheese and the toothbrushes lined up on a bathroom shelf rimmed with limescale.

‘Will you guys see out my birthday with one last beer?’

Because it is my birthday, and it’s almost warm, and the supermoon is casting its weird, otherworldly light, and if we walk a few metres to the south the Thames will open up to us and there, overlooking the wonder that is London, there will be a chance for me to forget the bad thing I have done, at least until tomorrow.

At that moment the security guard approaches and asks us to leave the festival grounds.

‘Won’t the pubs be closed?’ asks Anna, as we begin to make our way towards the exit. She wants to go home to her lovely husband and her beautiful baby, and to her perfect house and her dazzling life.

But it’s my birthday, and it’s almost warm, and if Anna calls it a day, there’s a good chance Bo and Dex will too and I will be alone.

‘There’s a corner shop just down the road. I’m buying.’

Anna hesitates for a moment, then relenting, says, ‘Maybe one quick beer, then.’

In my mind I’ve played this moment over and over, sensing, as if I were now looking down on the scene as an observer, the note of desperation in my offer, the urgent desire to block out the drab thump of my guilty conscience. These are things I failed to understand back then. There is so much I didn’t see. And now that I do, it’s too late.

Anna accompanies me and we agree to meet the boys by Wapping Old Stairs, where the alleyway gives onto the river walk, so we can drink our beers against the backdrop of the water. At the shop, I’m careful not to show the cashier or Anna the contents of my bag.

Moments later, we’re back out on the street, and I’m carrying a four pack but, when Anna and I reach the appointed spot, Bo and Dex aren’t there. Thinking they must have walked some short distance along the river path we call and, when there’s no answer, head off after them.

On the walkway, the black chop of the river slaps against the brickwork, but there’s no sign of Bo or Dex.

‘Where did the boys go?’ asks Anna, turning her head and peering along the walkway.

‘They’ll turn up,’ I say, watching the supermoon sliding slowly through a yellow cloud.

‘It’s a bit creepy here,’ Anna says.

‘This is where we said we’d meet, so…’