THE PREVIOUS NOVEMBER, a row of wooden beach huts, their paintwork lifted and flaked by the hard east wind, had burnt to the ground. The fire brigade came from twelve miles away, and had nothing to do by the time it arrived. Yobs on Rampage, the local paper decided; though no culprit was ever found. An architect from a more fashionable part of the coastline told the regional TV news that the huts were part of the town’s social heritage, and must be rebuilt. The council announced that it would consider all options, but since then had done nothing.

Vernon had moved to the town only a few months before, and had no feelings about the beach huts. If anything, their disappearance improved the view from The Right Plaice, where he sometimes had lunch. From a window table he now looked out across a strip of concrete to damp shingle, a bored sky and a lifeless sea. That was the east coast: for months on end you got bits of bad weather and lots of no weather. This was fine by him: he’d moved here to have no weather in his life.

‘You are done?’

He didn’t look up at the waitress. ‘All the way from the Urals,’ he said, still gazing at the long, flat sea.

‘Pardon?’