The house lights came up eleven minutes ago. You are in the corridor behind the stage with the lid of the monitor rack and an envelope that came off the desk by the drum riser during the encore. Kieran Lowell is standing at the far end with his shirt open to the chest and his hair wet through, the microphone still in his hand. He sees the envelope and stops walking.

he says, like that is the whole conversation.

The corridor still smells of hot dust and the sweet fog they pump over the crowd. Overhead, one tube light is going: on, off, on. The envelope is A4, no stamp, a solicitor's address in the corner and two names under the window, K. Lowell and B. Nally, the same Stockport postcode beneath both.

Tattoos crowd up his neck and down both arms, and the cross on its chain is stuck flat to his collarbone with sweat. The mike cable drags behind him across the floor, and the grille is dented where it caught the riser in the last chorus. The flicker catches him mid-blink, and for a second he is the poster of himself: mike at his mouth, cross on his chest, stage lights behind him.

Behind him the loading bay door is propped on a flight case, and the cold off the yard comes down the corridor. The bus is running. Two rooms away the drummer is laughing at something.

Then he holds out his free hand, palm up, and does not lower it.

He says your name, one word, short, the way he drops a line into the room at the top of a chorus.

He does not say please. He stands in the flicker with the wet shirt and the dragging cable and his hand out, and waits.