I suspect our reason had something to do with the cause the young always espouse: justice. It seemed unjust to us that some power in the land should have the right to deprive two people of the child they loved and who loved them. Needless to say, we never questioned at that time their kindness and their love, we took it for granted. We never asked ourselves or one another if they were fit to be parents or if Jason’s best interests were served by living with them. It was justice we saw. Not with the scales in her hand, for we were uninterested in weighing up pros and cons, but crusading, with a flaming sword.

No one was in the street below us. The usual cars were lined up, nose to tail, all along both sides, and because Torrington Gardens was a wide road, down the center as well. On the opposite side many windows in the equally high terraces were brightly lit, their blinds up or curtains drawn back, but I had never seen a face looking out of any of them. What, after all, would a watcher have seen but the familiar opposing facade glimpsed through a network of branches, thready twigs and leaves?

“We needn’t crawl,” I said. “We can walk. There’s no one to see us.” Silver agreed but said we needed to make ourselves dirty, so we picked up handfuls of last year’s plane leaves and the black grime of many years and rubbed it over our faces and hands, wiping our hands down the front of our T-shirts. We looked quite sinister, especially Silver, fair and pale-skinned as he was, now with his ice-gray eyes peering out of dark whorls.

“I’m sorry we have to frighten them,” he said, but I said that perhaps they’d just be angry.

“They’ll only be angry if they’re not who we think they are.”

“And then we shall have to get out of here fast,” said Wim.

Instead of dropping onto our knees, we walked along the balcony. The room in 4E was lit but empty. It had been a cool day with hourly showers and not much sun, but the window was open about four inches at the top. We sat down and speculated as to what they might be doing. It was just ten, so too late for them to be putting the boy to bed. Washing dishes, said Silver, to whose lot this task most often fell at home in Russia Road. One of them was having a bath, I said, and the other one was sitting with Jason, who refused to sleep. Wim offered no suggestions. He lit a cigarette, saying that the smoke would drift in at the window, they would smell it, and come. So we all lit cigarettes. The smoke was visible, little gray wisps of it slipping and curling into the gap between sash and lintel.