And she turned to the appointment log on the computer and said: “Because she booked a notarisation for two fifteen today for two people.”

Two.

Booked on the third of September.

The day before the refusal — she had booked it before being told no, which means she had always intended to bring Daniela in, and the fourth of September was an attempt to get it done without her and the sixteenth was always the fallback.

Which means that from the fourth of September onward my wife was not trying to sell a car.

She was trying to get a twenty-year-old into a chair in a strip unit in Peoria on the afternoon of Monday the sixteenth, in front of a notary, to put her hand on a form.