So back to the flat it was ….leaving the dubious creature comfort of a retail centre heading for the ghost of Christmas, only to be caught in the icy blast sweeping down Buckhold Road.

The developers had started work again, demolishing old premises and preparing foundations for new. A bulldozer’s maw was chewing up bricks and mortar like a starved metal monster, who’s appetite was being sated on a banquet of redundant buildings.

Leaving the builders behind, he slipped into his own block and climbed up the stairs as the lift appeared otherwise occupied, Idiot B felt his legs leaden as he reached the fifth floor, fumbling for the keys to open the stiff door, made more so by a sheaf of paper that had been, in the absence of an individual letter box, pushed under….

Reaching down for the missive, a photograph fell out, bearing the sepia image of a young man, looking back at him from down through a period of years …….