Silver looked grim. The bruises and damage to Liv’s eye had finally settled it. He was going to speak to Jonny. And as soon as Jonny appeared, early for him, at around half past five, he took him aside. They went into the third bedroom, and Silver told him that if he hit Liv again he’d have to go. She could stay but he must go. Jonny said he’d been provoked beyond bearing or he’d never have done it. Liv was two-timing him with Wim, he was sure of it, and she had lied and lied to him about the money.

“It’s not your money,” Silver said.

Jonny was indignant. “It’s not hers either. Look at it this way, I’ve as much right to it as she has. She stole it, mate, you’ve got to admit it, so it’s not hers, is it?” Evil Jonny might have been but he wasn’t unintelligent. “It belongs to them two she worked for but they don’t even know she nicked it, that’s all a load of bollocks about them looking for it out in the street, that’s crap. So it don’t belong to her and it don’t belong to me but it’s here in this place somewhere or up on top of this place and when I find it I’m going to nick it again. That’s nothing to me, all in the day’s work, you might say. I’ve been a thief since I was a young kid.

“In and out the City Road,

In and out the Eagle,

That’s the way the money goes,

Pop goes the weasel.”

He had it all worked out. Silver couldn’t gainsay him. The whole business had taken on a kind of metaphysical or ethical slant and it seemed beyond ordinary argument. All Silver could do was repeat what he had said about Jonny having to go if he struck Liv again. Then he suggested he take this bedroom, which was seldom used, and leave Liv to the one they had been sharing. Jonny agreed to that, pretended to be delighted at the idea—“to have a bit of peace from that bitch whining.”

That evening he behaved impeccably, or as impeccably as he ever could, producing two pizzas he had brought in for our dinner, as well as wine, which Silver and I didn’t drink because we were going on the roofs. Jonny never observed Silver’s rule about this. He used to say he managed better up there when he was “pissed” and evidently intended to be an excellent manager that night, for he drank a whole bottle of wine and a fair amount of whiskey too and sang an obscene version (his own?) of “Three Blind Mice.” Liv, of course, hated any version, especially the bit about cutting off their tails with a carving knife. Of Wim there was no sign.