Liv had washed and polished her tooth and asked if we thought she could have it mounted to hang from a gold chain around her neck. She seemed delighted with the new bedroom arrangement. I think her pleased acceptance was due to the increased chances (as she saw it) of entertaining Wim than to getting rid of Jonny. She hadn’t, of course, got rid of him. There were no locks on the doors of any rooms in the flat, Jonny could have got to her anytime he wanted to, and he certainly would want to when he was sure the money was nowhere on the roofs. The fact that I had hidden it made me feel very uncomfortable and when I went down to take Mabel home I checked in the sideboard drawer. It was there. Of course it was. But I was dissatisfied with my hiding place and I considered moving it. On Sunday, two days away, I was to wish I had. But that Friday evening it seemed safe enough, as safe as anywhere.

Silver and Liv and I went up onto the roofs, all the way along Peterborough Avenue as far as the first intersecting street. When you’re on the leads or the slates, coming to where a street branches off is like walking along downland to the edge of a cliff. Or reaching a precipice. The street isn’t just an ordinary useful roadway but an uncrossable canyon. We turned around, we had no choice, and sat down in the middle of a flat area where someone had once tried to make a roof garden. They’d probably found it too much bother to climb up a ladder and get through a trapdoor every time they wanted to water the plants, for the tubs were full of brown twigs and stems with dead seed heads on them, very like the dried flowers people pay a great deal of money for. There was even a dead birch tree, its silver bark hanging off in rags, its branches dangling threads. The moonlight made everything gray and black and frost-white, though it was a mild windless night, as warm as a London night can ever be.