Hand in hand they left the room but not before I was able to see her quite clearly. For a moment she had looked unseeing in our direction. She resembled Alison Barrie, though younger and prettier than in the photograph. Perhaps the wrinkles were ironed out by artificial light, for her forehead was smooth and the lines about her mouth less obvious. In spite of this her face was a mask of anxiety, as if acute fear lived with her day and night, and she looked very much in need of Silver’s panacea: “Don’t worry.” If it was Alison, if it was Jason.

A moment after they had gone a lamp came on behind the cloth hanging at the first window. It was some sort of green floral material and the light showed up its pattern of poppies and daisies. We waited for something more to happen, for that light to go out perhaps and for her to come back into the living room, perhaps with Andrew. Or for Andrew to come in alone. If it was she, if there was a man there at all. The car chase was long over, the film itself was over, and a quiz show had begun. Silver said that we must take into account the fact that the flat was probably quite big, consisting of as many as six rooms, three along the back as well as these in the front. He and she could be in their kitchen or even have gone to bed.

“They wouldn’t go to bed leaving the telly on,” I said.

I lit a cigarette but Silver told me to put it out. The window was open a little way at the bottom and if they weren’t smokers themselves they might smell it. It was almost ten and I was wondering if we were to stay there all night, when the woman came back. She was barefoot, wearing a dressing gown of pink-and-white checked cotton. She began to tidy the room, plumping up cushions, blowing dust from the tabletop, picking up cups by inserting a separate finger in each one.

She switched off the television, took the cups away, came back, and carefully laid puzzle and beanbag board on the table. We ducked down as she came to the window and closed it. She was so near us that, looking up, I could see the golden down on her forearms, the little snag in the material of her dressing gown at the waist, the gold watch on her wrist. We held our breath. She had only to look down—but she didn’t. She went to the door, switched off the light, and left the room.