There was a lone dark-haired woman taking shelter under the Spanish Arch.  She was wearing a crimson woolly hat and Declan noticed the binoculars around her neck.  As he approached her, she suddenly waved at him and beamed widely.  There was a general camaraderie between bird-watchers.  Recognition of their common pursuit was usually acknowledged with a smile or a nod.  The woman’s familiarity with him made him stall.  Did she know him?  An old friend of Helen’s maybe?  But then, surely, she wouldn’t be waving at him so cheerily.

‘Here to see the gulls?’ she called and he realised he didn’t know her at all.  She was just one of those people.  She probably talked to strangers on trains.