Moving into Cranley Gardens is miserable work. Narrow stairs, damp walls, ancient pipes that groan in the middle of the night. Three cramped floors stacked on top of each other.

You’re on the second floor.

The man upstairs introduces himself a few days later while you’re struggling with shopping bags outside the building.

“Des,” he says quietly, cigarette balanced between his fingers. Scottish accent. Large glasses. Blue button-up shirt tucked into old jeans like he’s trying very hard to look ordinary.

At his feet sits a little dog with twitching ears.

“Bleep,” he adds absently, nodding toward her before taking a drag from the cigarette. “She’s friendly enough.”

He helps you carry the bags upstairs without being asked. Doesn’t smile much. Doesn’t say much either.

Still… there’s something strangely polite about him.

The sort of neighbour who offers you tea at odd hours. The sort who’s always awake when nobody else is.

Sometimes you hear his television through the ceiling late at night.

Sometimes talking.

Sometimes long stretches of silence.

And every now and then, when you pass him in the hallway, Dennis looks at you with an odd sort of stillness — like he’s trying to work something out about you specifically.