The backs of the houses in Torrington Gardens can be seen from Torrington Road. We wriggled back along the balcony, climbed up onto the roof, and instead of returning in the Russia Road direction, made our way down the scaffolding between the end of this terrace and the start of the first one in Peterborough Avenue.

“Don’t you think it’s strange,” I said as we were walking home, “that Morna still recognized him even though in the photos he had a beard and now she says he hasn’t?”

“There was a picture of him in one of the papers,” Silver said, “without a beard. That is, what some artist thought he’d look like without one.”

“I wish we’d seen him.”

“We will.”

I wrote some diary pages that night after Silver was asleep. It was my first night as an occupant of his flat rather than a visitor. I lived there now. I wanted to record my status as a resident and record too our first sight of the people in the flat we began calling simply 4E, the way we went about things and what we said. I’d have forgotten details of our conversation and the precise sequence of events if I hadn’t. Besides, much as I loved Silver, I enjoyed being alone sometimes. I enjoyed being on my own for a while in that room that was so high up, its windows open to the night, a little wind rustling the leaves of the gum tree and the catalpa whose branches made a canopy over Mabel’s grave. That night I sat there for a long time, writing sporadically, thinking about my life and the strange turns it had taken, about Daniel too and all the people who believed me wicked beyond redemption. I wrote ten pages and thought of Silver and me and our luck in finding each other, until the blackbird began to sing, establishing its territory in the tea bush, as it always did at four in the morning.

Chapter 19

19

IN MOST HOUSES, SOCKET outlets—you probably call them “points”—are mounted quite high up in the wall, so that cords have to trail at knee or hip level to appliances on furniture in the center of the room. This is a system I avoid whenever I can, and I’m starting to get a reputation with architects and builders as someone who installs floor socket outlets. Darren and Lysander and I are mounting this kind of wiring accessory in the floors of the Gilmore Hotel wherever possible and equipping them with a spring-loaded cover flap to keep the outlets free of dust and debris. It brings me a lot of pleasure and satisfaction to see how elegant the matte (but not dull) stainless-steel rectangles look, even though the tongue-and-grooved wood floors aren’t yet laid.