Charles was on a high. The concert had gone like a dream and now he was jammed full of adrenaline that he had nowhere to put. It was always the same. After performing he would be soaring like a kite and was always desperate to find somewhere to have some fun and unwind, but the rest of the orchestra seemed content to pack up their instruments and head home, job done.

Carefully he laid his violin into its tooled leather case. The instrument had been a gift from Grace. The violin he had been playing when they’d met had been more than adequate, but this one was without equal, certainly in the Apollo Philharmonic and possibly in the country.

The first oboist was just slipping a coat over his dinner jacket. He was a nice enough bloke, Charles thought, although he could be a bit glass-half-empty for Charles’s liking. Still, he was the only person left in the room and beggars couldn’t be choosers.

‘Fancy a drink, Jim?’ Charles asked hopefully.

‘Sorry, Charlie,’ the oboist said, shaking his head. ‘It’s a bit of a drive back for me and you can never be sure what the traffic will be doing, can you? Another night, though, maybe. If you give me a bit more notice.’

Charles shrugged. Who worried about the traffic at ten-thirty on a Saturday night? ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ he said with a cheery wave, although he knew he wouldn’t.

And then Charles was alone. He pulled his jacket on, feeling the familiar hard place in the breast pocket where his notebook lived. Back when his life had been more complicated, this little blue book had been the mechanism by which he kept everything afloat and it was always on his person. Even after Charles had driven away from Whitley Bay for the very last time, paranoia had made him keep the tell-tale notebook safely with him in case anyone looking at its contents would instantly understand what he had been up to.