The only hotel I knew of was the Gilmore. We could hardly recommend it, having tested its lift ourselves, and we eventually found him one in Elgin Avenue, the Edgware Road end. By this time he was talking about the airfare he had sent Liv and saying he wanted it back. She wasn’t to be trusted with money, he said, suddenly confiding in us. She stole from her mother’s purse when quite a small child and there had been trouble at school over her shoplifting. Silver told him he had the money safe in his own bank account and then we left him, I to find a callbox and phone my parents, not relying on the anonymity of any call reaching them from Silver’s flat.

The ensuing trouble was worse than I had expected. Oddly enough, Max and Selina came in for as much rage and blame as I. Dad would phone Max as soon as I had rung off. A piece of his mind would be delivered. Mum wanted to know what I had done that was so disgraceful (her word) as to deserve summary eviction. Where was I now? When was I coming home?

“I’m not,” I said and had to back away from the receiver, the outburst was so violent.

Silver kept feeding the phone with 20p pieces. When I too was threatened with the police I said goodbye and put the receiver down, but carefully and not with a crash. Hand in hand we walked back to 15 Russia Road. It was my home now, a place where they didn’t have to take me in. They wanted to.

Chapter 18

18

HÅKAN ALMQUIST’S ARRIVAL AND his violence toward her, even more than that, his threat of calling the police, made Liv’s attitude to the outdoors worse. Now not only Claudia and James were out there looking for her but her father as well. She stayed in her bedroom, only coming out at sunset. The sun streamed into Silver’s living room on a fine day, and it was as if she was afraid of its rays seeking her out as in wartime an airman might fear the beam of a searchlight. Even when those rays had dulled and reddened, she flinched from them, covering her face with her hands.