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And this is how it is sometimes, isn’t it? When the pendulum swings especially high in one direction, its momentum carries it back to swing high the other way. Love becomes hate, shame becomes anger, shocked disbelief becomes – some sort of embarrassed, comic incredulity.

I decided, on the whole, not to worry about it.

Tomorrow’s another day.

I heaved the duvet up to my chin and went back to reading Cupid’s Engine, and soon enough, the novel’s current began pulling and tugging at me, demanding my full attention. I was only too happy to let go of things and be carried away by it, racing off downstream, disappearing into the distance like a small boat on the rapids.

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Cupid’s Engine begins with a tall, scruffy man in a white fedora and crumpled linen suit. He’s propping himself up in a doorway, covered in blood. Although we don’t know it yet, this man’s name is Maurice Umber. He has a bloody knife in his right hand, and a telephone receiver pressed to his left ear.

‘Police,’ he mumbles into the phone. ‘You’re going to have to send somebody.’