“A restlessness pervaded his slightest movements as he sat behind a desk in the small dusty office that overlooked the minarets of the Near East. The call of the muezzin cried and wailed in the distance…”

“Henry Bird stood on the front step of his house. His hand still held the key in the lock of the front door. He always shut the door with the key, turning it in the lock to avoid that bang which set his teeth on edge.”

“Thursday last, at the pond, early morning, at about a quarter to eight. Sun grins down on me, the first sunny day in a long time. A nascent but confident Sun, full of vitality and young strength.”

The sun periodically burned through the blanket of cloud so I chanced an outside table at one of the cafés on Swain’s Lane. I sat, looking enviously over at the well-heeled diners tucking into mountainous salads at Kalendar and Café Mozart.