“Gone forever, maybe. I guess he’s found someone else. Or some scam that’s more important than sex.”

Owing to my great tiredness, it was the next day before I asked Silver what we were going to do now we knew the occupants of 4E were who we thought they were.

“Go and look after them,” he said.

But not that day. The rain was torrential, pouring down in relentless straight rods. It was too wet to venture out and go to the launderette. Instead I went downstairs and chatted to Beryl while she pursued her pointless task of dusting rooms no one had occupied for weeks and no one else would enter for months. The “new girl” had moved into old Mrs. Fisherton’s and it was her belief we should soon see “Mrs.” moving out.

“D’you mean she’s Max’s girlfriend?”

“He’s always down there, love,” said Beryl, “and I’ll tell you something else. His side of the bed’s not been slept in this past week. You can always tell. It’s a king-size and his side’s all straight and smooth. His hairs used to be all over the pillow, handfuls of white hairs, reminds me of a sheepdog we had when my old man was still alive, always shedding, that dog was, but there’s no hairs there now. He’s doing his molting down in the basement.”

“A bit tough on Selina, isn’t it?”

“If she’d any self-respect she wouldn’t put up with it,” said Beryl and then the doorbell rang.

She went to answer it—“to save poor Mr. Silver’s legs”—and let in Håkan Almquist.