I could detect in his voice a longing for that distant reality he described just as I’d seen in his face a disgust with this fakery he was involved in. Yorkshire born and bred he might be, but his soul yearned for something that he had persuaded himself could still be found under other less chilly skies. Poor boy. He had the open hopeful look of one born to be disappointed. I yearned to save him from the shattering of his illusions.

The canned music was growing louder and the dancing waiters who’d been urging more and more customers to join their line were getting close to my table, so I tucked some coins into the leather pouch dangling from the boy’s tunic, paid my bill and left.

It was after midnight when the restaurant closed but I didn’t mind sitting in my car, waiting. There is a pleasure in observing and not being observed, in standing in the shadows watching the creatures of the night going about their business. I saw several cats pad purposefully down the alleyway alongside the Taverna where they kept their rubbish bins. An owl floated between the chimneys, remote and silent as a satellite. And I glimpsed what I’m sure was the bushy tail of an urban fox frisking round the corner of a house. But it was the human creatures I was most interested in, the last diners striding, staggering, drifting, driving off into the night, little patches of Stimmungsbild-voices calling, footsteps echoing, car doors banging, engines revving-which played for a moment against the great symphony of the night, then faded away, leaving its dark music untouched.

Then comes a long pause-not in time but of time-how long I don’t know for clocks are blank-faced now-till finally I hear a motorbike revving up in the alleyway and my boy appears at its mouth, a musician making his entry into the music of the night. I know it’s him despite the shielding helmet-would have known without the evidence of the bazouki case strapped behind him.