A fine hot summer’s day was in the making. The sun began to burn the mist away. Leaning out of the window, I could feel the heat on my skin, already intense. We’d go to 4E before dark, Silver said, and while Jason was still up. And we’d take presents with us as a token of our good faith and friendliness, things they probably never got, a newspaper maybe and a bottle of wine and something for the boy. Chocolate, Wim said, which seemed a good idea.

I was due at the Houghtons’ at midday. It was really too hot for gardening, with a dangerous heat the English are unaccustomed to. I put on a cotton hat, which was a discard of Silver’s father, and sun cream on my face and arms and got down to deadheading, cutting back, and weeding. I don’t know if you have ever tried clearing a nettle plantation. It’s not a pleasant task in the heat, for nettles have root systems like a close-woven fishing net, yellow and tough. If you leave a bit behind the whole ramification grows again and with remarkable speed. Mrs. Houghton brought me a cup of tea and Mr. Houghton a glass of Perrier and both admired what I had done, saying they didn’t know how they had got on without me, something that is always gratifying to hear. It was just after six when I got home and learned what had happened in my absence.

Liv greeted me calmly enough but with staring eyes, and told me how she had twice tried to phone her mother in Kiruna and twice got the answering machine. She claimed to have been ignorant of the fact that her parents had one. The message she had left said only that it was Liv calling from London. Silver had tried to persuade her to go to the hotel herself, though he knew before he began that this was hopeless. All he had accomplished was to get her to stand on our front doorstep. He had taken her downstairs again, opened the front door, and put the catch on. Then he had very gradually opened it wider with her standing beside him. Trembling all over, he said. It was relatively cool inside the hall. As the door came open waves of heat seemed to roll in and settle on their arms and faces. This was rather comforting to Liv, apparently, and enabled her to step over the threshold. She stood at the top of the steps under the porch overhang, where she followed Silver’s instructions and breathed deeply. She clung to his arm, tottering as if the damage done to her was in her bones rather than her mind. Sweat streamed off her, actually dripping from her face and making damp patches on her clothes, and he could smell her, an oniony, salty scent like frying.