They were in the front garden of her extravagant house, apparently waiting for something or someone. I pulled in a few yards up and on the opposite side. Håkan Almquist looked just the same as when I had last seen him and he still carried his little bag strapped to his back, perhaps even the same little bag into which he had placed Liv’s package that day eleven years ago. He was dressed in the kind of casual clothes Scandinavians wear on holiday, even when that holiday is in a city, jeans and open-necked shirt, anorak, and walking boots. His wife wore the same sort of gear and looked the same, the only difference between them being that her hair, though short, wasn’t crew cut and her anorak was blue, not green. The front door opened and the au pair came out with the two children, retreating immediately as if glad to see the back of all four and shutting the door rather loudly. Almost simultaneously a taxi drew up outside and they got into it, propelling the children in front of them, the little girl yelling in protest. I wondered where they were going. To some theater or cinema? It was too late for Madame Tussaud’s or the zoo. This, at any rate, was one cab Liv’s father hadn’t minded spending money on. But perhaps Mr. Clarkson paid.

Parents notoriously put aside all resentment and reproaches when their children succeed in life. Or succeed according to their judgment criteria. I think mine would have respected me more if my life had followed Liv’s course, if I had found a rich husband and had a boy and a girl, instead of what Dad called my “messing about with wires and fuse boxes.” Still, they’re proud of me now, if in a grudging and puzzled kind of way (“But, why, dear? How did you ever come to want to do such a thing?”), just as Liv’s parents would have become proud of her and probably without such reservations.

I asked myself how she had managed to prevent those parents from revealing, by a chance remark, the kind of life she led and company she kept while living at 15 Russia Road. Had she bought their silence as she had tried to buy mine? I imagined them subjected to a daily nagging, constant adjurations from Liv, while Angus Clarkson was off stockbroking or entrepreneuring, not to dare say a word, not even to hint at events of that past time.