I looked at the cream house. Something had changed. For a moment I couldn’t work out what it was, and then I realized: the paper was no longer on the door.

I pushed the woman away and hurried down the street. Outside number 12 I paused for a moment to catch my breath. Then I rang the bell.

The door opened. A tall Indian man stood there. I stared at him. He smiled back.

Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘You have the sofabed?’

I shook my head. There was a pause. Far away I heard the school bell ring; at the same moment, the ice-cream van started playing a melody. I thought: perhaps that woman has called the police.

‘Do you live here?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘Something has happened to it?’

‘No. I was just wondering about the bike.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘The bike, there.’ I pointed into the hall. In the gloom, a woman and a child were peering at me.

‘The bicycle?’ he asked.

‘I thought it belonged to my son.’ That wasn’t quite what I meant to say; he wouldn’t understand.

‘You are saying that my son has taken your son’s bicycle?’

‘No!’ I cried. ‘Sorry.’ I took a breath. He was still looking at me kindly. ‘I made a mistake. I’m looking for the people who used to live here. A little boy called Edward.’

‘Edward?’

I nodded. He gazed at me politely. His wife had come nearer; the child peered from behind her.

‘The people before you, was there a boy called Edward?’

He shook his head, turned and said something to his wife. Perhaps that he had a loony here. He turned back. ‘My wife reminds me. The previous tenants, they had two charming little girls.’

I didn’t know what to say next. Down the road I heard the whoops and shouts of the children coming out of school. The woman must have been bluffing, about the newspaper, or I’d be hearing the sirens by now.

The man was still standing there kindly, waiting for me to speak. His wife whispered something to him. She was one of the most ravishing women I had ever seen.

‘Maddy and Janie,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘The two little girls.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘We have lived here a year,’ he replied.

‘And the people before?’

He was still polite, but it couldn’t go on for ever. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps for two or three years,’

At that point a boy came up, swinging a carrier bag.

‘This is my son, Salim,’ said the man.

‘Hello,’ said the boy. To my amazement he already had black down on his upper lip.

There was a pause. Behind us the street was full of schoolchildren. I couldn’t think what to do next. The man’s wife whispered to him again, in her foreign language. She was probably telling him to get rid of me.

In despair I said: ‘Is there nobody who’d know? Who’d lived here—oh, seven years ago?’