“I couldn’t stand being everlastingly cooped up in here. I felt I was fighting for breath. I’ll tell you something. Before all this started I promised Jason a mynah bird, he was crazy to have a talking bird, but if we ever get out of here he won’t. I’ll never keep a caged bird. Every time I looked at it or heard it talk, I’d think of this place, this dump.”

Jason began to whine. “Dad, you promised, you promised, Dad.”

“I know how hard it is,” Silver said, “but you mustn’t go out. That’s the way you’ll be found.”

“No, you don’t know how hard it is. No one knows who hasn’t been through it. I didn’t need to go shopping. You do that for us and I’m sure we’re very grateful.” He didn’t sound grateful, he sounded resentful. “I had to go out. I had to be free just for half an hour. I felt that if I didn’t go out, I’d have a breakdown, I’d start screaming out of the window.” He added, in a few words taking away my impulse to shout at him, what about Alison, what about her having a breakdown, “It was such a lovely day.”

“You’d better get a false beard,” said Silver, “or grow one. But then you’ll look the way you did before you left your home. How about a mustache? Could you do that? In time for when my friend comes to take your passport photos?”

“My” friend, not “our.” “When’s that going to be?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to ask her. Meanwhile, could you just not go out? You won’t be here much longer, you won’t be here for the winter. I promise you that.”

It was a promise that would be fulfilled. Even then I was sure it would be. I had faith in Silver and you could see they had, or Alison had. Andrew said no more. Did Alison ever reproach him? Had she ever said a word to him about his imprudence, about the danger he ran into through his need for immediate freedom? She laid her hand on his arm, caressing it for a moment before sitting down at the table to read the newspaper account. Silver gave them the outline of our plan.

The greatest risk was from Sean Francis on the ground floor. There was a good chance of his seeing them if they went downstairs with their suitcases and waited in the hall for a taxi. The elderly couple he thought we had no need to worry about. He meant to get to know Sean Francis, find out what sort of a person he was and if, even, we could take him into our confidence. Here Andrew interrupted to say he didn’t care for that. You could trust no one.

“You trust us,” Silver said.