‘Nope. You’re not walking down that long sidewalk anymore, Doc.’ He was very authoritative, and I knew when he got this way there was no point in arguing.

I handed him my keys. ‘Then you go on in through the front and open the garage door. I’ll wait right here.’

He opened his door. ‘I got a shotgun between the seats.’

He reached down to show me a black Benelli twelve-gauge with an eight-round magazine extension. It occurred to me that Benelli, a manufacturer of fine Italian shotguns, was also the name on Gault’s false driver’s license.

‘The safety’s right there.’ Marino showed me. ‘All you do is push it in, pump it and fire.’

‘Is there a riot about to happen that I’ve not been told about?’

He got out of the truck and locked the doors.

I cranked open the window. ‘It might help if you knew my burglar alarm code,’ I said.

‘Already do.’ He started walking across frosted grass. ‘Your DOB.’

‘How did you know that?’ I demanded.

‘You’re predictable,’ I heard him say before disappearing around a hedge.

Several minutes later the garage door began to lift and a light went on inside, illuminating yard and garden tools neatly arranged on walls, a bicycle I rarely rode, and my car. I could not see my new Mercedes without thinking of the one Lucy had wrecked.

My former 500E was sleek and fast with an engine partially designed by Porsche. Now I just wanted something big. I had a black S500 that probably would hold its own with a cement truck or a tractor trailer. Marino stood near my car, looking at me as if he wished I would hurry up. I honked the horn to remind him I was locked inside his truck.

‘Why do people keep trying to lock me inside their vehicles?’ I said as he let me out. ‘A taxi this morning, now you.’

‘Because it’s not safe when you’re loose. I want to look around your house before I leave,’ he said.

‘It’s not necessary.’

‘I’m not asking. I’m telling you I’m going to look,’ he said.

‘All right. Help yourself.’

He followed me inside, and I went straight to the living room and turned on the gas fire. Next I opened the front door and brought in the mail and several newspapers that one of my neighbors had forgotten I to pick up. To anybody watching my gracious brick house, it would have been obvious that I was gone over Christmas.

I glanced around as I returned to the living room, looking for anything even slightly out of order. I wondered if anyone had thought about breaking in. I wondered what eyes had turned this way, what dark thoughts had enveloped this place where I lived.