I realise I am going to have to check out the path down to the dismantled railway line, after all, and, worst case, go through all of Overcoat Man’s many, many pockets.

Late afternoon. Wednesday. I am standing at the window looking out at the back gardens of my neighbours and the rear elevations of the houses in the next street. Behind me, my study. Built-in bookshelves cover two walls, floor to ceiling. Fiction, film, biography – each has a different section. Short story anthologies, literary journals in magazine files. Books are ordered alphabetically, little magazines chronologically. Perched on the four-drawer filing cabinet looking down at my desk is a head-and-shoulders mannequin, female; standing in the corner close to the anthologies and magazines, a full-size tailor’s dummy.
          My desk is as tidy as that in my office at the university. Laptop, empty mug (on coaster), pile of scripts for marking, A4 wallet-style folder marked ‘Writers’ Rooms’. On the wall over the desk, a number of pictures of aeroplanes – some cut out of newspapers and magazines, others printed at home on photographic paper – pinned to a small corkboard. Against the fourth wall under the window is a long free-standing bookcase. On top of this at the left-hand end is a pile of books, first novels – Fermentation by Angelica Jacob, Pharricide by Vincent De Swarte, Glass People by Tom Darling. John Banville’s Nightspawn, Philip N Pullman’s The Haunted Storm. Among others. At the right-hand end, a pile of six identical trade paperbacks. Orange spine, black type.
          To the left of the rear gardens that I can see from the window, the main road climbs gently over the trackbed of a dismantled railway line. I can see Overcoat Man making his way slowly up the incline. Overcoat Man is one of numerous instantly recognisable characters that I see around the village, such as Laundry Bag Man, Umbrella Lady, Polling Station Man and Dog Man. Overcoat Man wears several overcoats one on top of the other. All of them are filthy, his trousers likewise. His shoes are coming apart, which perhaps accounts for his shuffling gait and extremely slow progress. His features mostly hidden behind unkempt grey hair and a long reddish beard, he is inscrutable. Often he can be heard muttering to himself and occasionally he will ask passers-by for money or utter an offensive remark.
          As he reaches the point towards the top of the hump-back bridge where a path leads down to the trackbed of the former railway line, he turns to confront an approaching crowd of rowdy young people. Maybe he asks them for money or growls unintelligibly at them, but something prompts them to gather around him. I am unable for a few moments to see clearly what is happening, but soon I realise that he is being jostled. He seems to try to edge away from the group down the path to the old railway line and either loses his footing or is pushed and falls over. He rolls once or twice and then I can no longer see him.
          In what resembles the protective gesture of a threatened organism, the group of young people closes in. They form a huddle, from which one and then two members abruptly break out, leaving the group. Others depart and soon there’s only one person standing at the head of the path, peering down into the undergrowth. After a moment, this person also leaves.

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