Simon picked him up at sunset, by the ruins in the park. The ones that were very, very old. George thought he’d seen someone shining a light in the melted oval of a doorway straight across from the can-festooned lawn at the edge of the car park. Usually, he’d go introduce himself. Everyone was a customer, that was his motto. Even if they didn’t know it. A man wandering around those forbidding heaps of stone was probably homeless, but surely even the homeless had a motorbike hidden somewhere. A scooter at the very least.

George wasn’t to blame for his ignorance. George was from Harrogate. His grandfather had seen a poor person there perhaps, after the war.

But he didn’t look. Because the town of Raughnen was turning nasty. Nastier even than at the start of the week. The shouted insults across streets had turned to muggings. Muggings had turned to stabbings. Stabbings had turned to running down the club and shagging one’s sister, according to a blood-soaked young gentleman outside the post office yesterday morning.

He was glad when Simon came. Just like Granny Stillwater, he was getting out of here while he still could.