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‘Just spoke to some crazy foreigner,’ he said. ‘Lost his way off the West Highland Way. I told him, I said, you’re miles off, and he wanted to know what he should do, but I just told him, you’ll need to head back the way you’ve come. Some people, eh?’

I waited in the car while Dave was in the shop. Rain started to blur the windscreen and I felt troubled. For the record, I’m no Mother Teresa. I don’t make a habit of picking up lame ducks and I’m ever so slightly impatient with those who do. But there’s something about travellers stranded on roadsides by breakdowns, or people who look lost, or in distress, that always makes me falter. Some primitive instinct, which I rarely act upon, makes me want to stop and offer help. Usually I dither, fail to act in case I look stupid, drive by and then regret it: the infinite frozen impulse, the wasted generosity, of the shy. The almost-nearly good Samaritan. Which, if you ask me, is more irritating than someone who lacks the impulse in the first place.