‘I did, though, didn’t I?’

‘No doubt about it. But…’

‘But what?’

‘I just get the feeling you’re still not comfortable with it.’

‘I don’t like flaunting it, if that’s what you mean. Rubbing my success in other people’s faces.’

Allan looked as though he had more to say, but natural caution won him over and he only nodded. Their attention was distracted by sudden music, pulsing from a car as it cruised towards them. It was a gloss-black BMW, looked like an M5. Thin Lizzy on the hi-fi – ‘The Boys are Back in Town’ – and Chib Calloway in the passenger seat, singing along. The window was down, and his eyes met Mike’s again. He made the shape of a pistol with his fingers, thumb curving itself into a trigger, drawing a bead on the two smokers. And then he was gone. Mike noticed that Allan had been watching.

‘Still reckon we could’ve taken them?’ he asked.

‘No bother,’ Allan replied, flicking the unsmoked half of his cigarette into the road.

That night, Mike ate alone.

Gissing had suggested dinner, but Allan had said there was work waiting at home. Mike, too, made his excuses, then hoped he wouldn’t bump into the professor later on in the restaurant. Thing was, he quite liked eating without company. He’d picked up a paper from a late-opening newsagent’s. Walking towards Haymarket, he’d decided on Indian. Restaurants didn’t much cater for readers – the lights were usually too low – but he was able to find a table with a wall lamp behind it. In the paper, he read that it was crunch time for Indian restaurants – rice shortages leading to price hikes; tighter immigration meaning fewer chefs were entering the country. When he mentioned this to the waiter, the young man just smiled and shrugged.

The restaurant was pretty full, and Mike’s table was too close to a party of five drunks. Their suit jackets were draped over the backs of their chairs.