We couldn’t ask Morna to stay behind while the rest of us lunched out. Besides, I didn’t care for a threesome with Judy. She was very pretty. Now that I knew she had been Silver’s girlfriend she seemed much prettier than she had at first. I resolved firmly, as I had done before, not to be jealous, but it was a struggle. We ate at home, conjuring up something from what we had. Scraps, said Silver. That was what it meant, ends of two loaves, cheese rinds, two stale eggs, and half a dried-up fruit cake. We had shopped for Andrew and Alison but forgotten to get anything for ourselves. It was about half an hour after Morna and Judy left that the police came.

Silver and I were in bed. Desire had seized us simultaneously. I hoped very much that on his part it wasn’t actuated by seeing Judy again, but I didn’t seriously think this. Liv was in her own room and we were lying side by side having a postcoital cigarette when the doorbell rang. Silver can get dressed faster than anyone I know. He pulled on a T-shirt and stuck his head out of the window. I heard him say, “I’ll be right down.”

I followed him, fastening my jeans, running my fingers through my hair. He didn’t really think this could be something to do with James and Claudia, did he, I asked him as we ran down.

“I’m wondering if it could be about Liv’s father,” he said.

He was right. The hotel manager had told the police. They didn’t tell us how they discovered where I lived but Silver thought it probable the manager had spotted me in Mrs. Houghton’s garden, it being quite near the hotel, and asked her where I lived. This in fact was the case, as Mrs. Houghton herself told me rather apprehensively the following Monday. Had she done the right thing? She hadn’t known what to do. For my part, I was quite gratified to learn that she was unwilling to lose her gardener.

Silver took the police into his parents’ charmingly furnished living room, all cleaned and polished by Beryl, and they were obviously impressed by its respectability. There were many facts we’d have liked the answers to that they didn’t reveal. I suppose they never do. For instance, it was a long time before we found out why the manager had called the police. They took me, quite reasonably, for Håkan Almquist’s daughter. I denied it at once. Silver and I hardly knew what to do, how to act. Why did they want his daughter?

“He’s in the Royal Free,” the older policeman said. “He was mugged. Hit on the head. He’s got a fractured skull but he’ll be okay. His wife’s come over and she’s with him.”

Something, at any rate, was explained.

“We know his daughter,” Silver said. “We’ll tell her.”