SC and I ‘picked up’ the Glasgow University academic just outside Queen Street station. Rather than catch our train back to Edinburgh, we followed him across town to his office, intrigued by an invitation to consult his exercise book. In the cheap thin-soled flat sandals that I had bought only a couple of hours earlier in a panic, I just about managed to keep up with his fast paced walk.

The exercise book was a battered, grease-stained relic of the 1970s. Most curious, however, was the handwriting on the first page. It was all mine, and included the full details of my childhood address.

There was no way of knowing how this former belonging of mine had made it into this stranger’s possession, nor why he had intercepted us at the station.