I rolled up my window, which was cracked to let fresh air through, and averted my eyes. I thrashed at the steering wheel, thrumming my fingers, and willed the lights to change. The traffic snaked forward, inch by inch. The man in the saloon blasted his horn as he overtook at the next road junction and veered off in the opposite direction.

Half an hour later I pulled up outside Amber’s flat but then something warned me to move it some distance away and out of obvious sight. I backed up, did a three-point turn and retreated back down the cul-de-sac the way I’d come and rejoined the High Road. The next road had a no entry sign. By the time I managed to find a space, several roads up, time had ticked by.

As I locked the car, checking all around me, I noticed it. Three spaces down from my car, a black battered vehicle was squeezed between two white vans. I recognised it immediately from the personalised letters, ARB, on the number plate. I assumed Arthur had transferred the registration from his old maroon estate, and it looked even more out of place on his latest rusty model. I fumbled with my keys and got back in my car, scrabbling round in my bag for the phone. I made the call which I should have done earlier. I then got out and walked the short distance back to Amber’s flat.

‘Glad the rain’s gone.’ A small Asian lady with a dog smiled. She looked away from the animal, holding loosely on to its lead, as it fouled the footpath. Life carried on as normal. As I hurried past, I wondered briefly at normality in all its guises. Where did the boundary between normality and madness become hazy and indistinguishable? I hadn’t seen it with Arthur but then perhaps I’d been too self-absorbed to pay attention. He had been an incidental companion.

I stood outside the converted house, a 1940s building with cream stucco cladding and a red slate roof. I checked the address which I’d keyed into my phone and noticed that the curtains on the second floor were drawn. I would have been wiser to wait for the police but instead carried on towards the front door. Although it looked closed, a slight push and it opened without resistance. I tiptoed inside and on up the stairs.