Whether they were James and Claudia Hinde I had no idea, but Liv thought they were. She turned and fled down the staircase, tripping on the bottom step and falling flat on her face. Luckily she wasn’t hurt apart from grazes on her hands. We picked her up and between us carried her up as far as the second floor, where we set her down and told her to walk. She sat down and refused to budge. She must hide, she said, she must be hidden somewhere secret in the house. At any moment James and Claudia would ring the front doorbell, either that or come back with a policeman. Silver said there wasn’t any secret place in the house and he wouldn’t hide her. We all sat there for about ten minutes, which is a long time when you’re not doing anything and don’t know what to say. Liv kept looking at the grazes on her palms, from which a little blood was trickling. At the end of those ten minutes the doorbell did ring. I’ve seen plenty of people jump but never the way Liv did, leaping galvanically off the stair, all her muscles locked, her hands clawed. She gave a wolflike howl.

Silver went down. I said to Liv, like some awful old-time psychiatric nurse, that she must get up, pull herself together, get up those stairs. For some reason it worked and she began to run, surprisingly fast for someone who had taken no exercise for months. It was only Morna and Judy at the front door. Silver brought them upstairs. Their arrival was a godsend, for after what had happened we’d never have been able to leave Liv alone while we did our shopping, and they seemed quite willing to stay with her. If only Wim were a more reliable person. We both thought it but we didn’t say it aloud. We were beginning to feel like the parents of a two-year-old, except that most parents love the child and happily bear the curtailment of their freedom, while we felt ours as an intolerable burden.

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.