Treading carefully, Silver and I introduced ourselves as friends of Liv’s, come to inquire after Mr. Almquist because his daughter couldn’t. Naturally Elsie wanted to know why she couldn’t. Where was she? Didn’t she know about her father? Was she ill herself? Elsie’s English was inferior to her husband’s but she managed to convey to us that, having rushed to London as fast as she could get a flight, she had had the added worry of her daughter’s irresponsible behavior.

Håkan Almquist sat there in his chair beside the high white bed, one of many men in that ward, some walking about on Zimmer frames, others helped to take a few steps by a wife or girlfriend, two or three in bed with cages holding the bedclothes up off their legs. His Liv-like face was rather pale but otherwise he looked well. The holes in his memory seemed not to trouble him. I looked at his left hand and noticed that his wedding ring was gone.

“I forget,” he said, resuming his seat and stretching out his legs. “What can I do about that? At first I try to remember—for the police, you know—but it is hopeless. Everything is gone for four, five days before I am mugged.”

Elsie said something to him in Swedish and he, apologizing to us, answered her in that language. Silver and I were in a dilemma. If we told them where she was, Liv would be sure they’d tell the police and consider we had betrayed her. But the alternative was worse. She trapped us in a corner by asking the crucial question.

“So, where is my daughter?”

Silver answered. He said to me afterward that he had to answer and he had to tell the truth. We weren’t in the business of protecting Liv to the extent of lying to her parents. “Her address is 15 Russia Road, London W9.”

He wrote it down and wrote the phone number too. It gave him an uncomfortable feeling of laying his private sanctuary open to unwanted investigation and exploration. How would he cope with Liv if the police came and asked to talk to her? Suppose she locked herself in and threw the key out of the window? Suppose she tried to kill herself? Even while we were speaking and he was unwillingly betraying Liv, the locksmith was in Russia Road, making her bedroom door secure.

Elsie wanted to know if she lived there alone, if she was still an au pair, and once more, why couldn’t she come and see her parents instead of her parents having to go to her?

“You must ask her yourself,” said Silver, who had had enough of this.