It was not a dark and stormy night. Instead, it was Saturday afternoon, pushing dangerously close to the lunch/dinner barrier. The sun shone in the sky like a heatlamp in a snake enclosure, beating down on the city below – on the cars whizzing to and from their various destinations, on the people walking around the outdoor shopping centre. There was a sort-of joy in the air. It was infectious. You’d walk past someone with a smile on their face and by the time you’d reached Woolworths you’d be smiling too.

It should have been a dark and stormy night, he felt. There should have been rolling clouds in the sky, rain falling heavily on the cobbled stone ground illuminated only by orange streetlamps. It would have fit in his memory better to remember this day as grey, sullen, maudlin. It seemed so wrong, so unfair that this day should be so inconceivably joyous. He wanted the world to feel his pain, his loss, his grief. He wanted that darkness, that storm.

Still, the sun shone on.