Curtains had been drawn in the first three windows we passed, and in the fourth a piece of cloth had been pinned up against the glass to exclude the light. We were now under the windows of 4 Torrington Gardens. Was the cloth there because it was Jason’s bedroom? At the second window in the flat, the fifth one along, Silver got cautiously onto his hands and knees and I did the same. The window ledge was quite low down and when I lifted my head I could see into the room Wim had looked into, see the circular table with chairs around it, two armchairs, one red, one black, a television set, a picture on the wall facing us of a tiger in a rain forest. In the red armchair sat a little boy in blue pajamas. Silver’s indrawing of breath was just audible. I shifted so that I was closer to him and he took my dirty hand in his dirty hand. The boy wasn’t looking in our direction or at the television but gazing at something on his lap and slowly moving his fingers.

“He’s doing a jigsaw puzzle,” Silver said.

It was on a beanbag board resting on his knees. The board was blue and the bag part dark blue with a pattern of rabbits on it. On the television screen a car chase was in progress, up and down the steep streets of San Francisco, but it wasn’t exciting enough to distract him from his jigsaw. He looked like his photograph, exactly like. His skin was a soft golden cream and his lips red as a rose. We couldn’t see his eyes, they were so intent upon his puzzle, but his hair, which looked black in the photo, was a dark sepia brown. His bare feet dangled, not quite reaching the ground, and they were the most perfect small feet you could imagine, the toes as smooth and straight as fingers.

“What do you think?” Silver whispered. “Is it him?”

A woman had come into the room. We dodged down a bit in case she saw us, though it was quite bright in there, a central light being on as well as a table lamp, and fairly dark where we were. She didn’t even glance at the window but went straight to the boy, her anxious face softening as she smiled. She held out her arms but he shook his head quite vehemently. What she said to him couldn’t be heard but it worked, it persuaded him to put beanbag and jigsaw aside and stand up as she squatted down, so that their heads were on a level. She put her arms around him and kissed him, and for a moment he rested his cheek against hers. It looked as if she was trying to lift him and failing. He was too heavy now. Both of them shook their heads ruefully and laughed.