“Only through force of necessity. Did we have a choice?”

Silver turned his head so that he seemed to be addressing only Alison and Jason. I could see the red flush on the back of his neck. Judy would take their photographs, he said. He was pretty sure he could get passports for them through someone he knew. There was one thing he had to say to them they might not like. But that could come later. It must be Jason’s bedtime and we’d like to take him to bed, have a look at his new curtains.

No one objected. Each holding a hand, we took Jason into his bedroom and were shown the curtains Alison had made to replace the strip of floral green cloth that had covered the window. With no sewing machine she had stitched them by hand and lined them. The material was patterned with zoo animals. Jason said Alison had found it, carefully folded and laid in the bottom drawer of a chest.

“She said Mr. Robinson wouldn’t mind. She said he’d have forgotten it was there.”

He looked incredulous. Such a failure of memory was beyond him. He put on his pajamas and got into bed. I read to him for ten minutes, disappointed because Silver, who would once have stayed to hear of the activities of hob-bits, went back to join Andrew and Alison. I kissed Jason good night, careful not to let my tears touch his face. I wiped my eyes before returning to the living room.

With Jason absent, Silver explained his strategy, or explained what he’d like them to consent to. The stumbling block, the difficulty, in any escape plan was Jason. His looks put him outside the possibility of being their natural child. He might, just, be taken for Spanish or Portuguese, but never of Anglo-Saxon parentage. So, if the escape was to work, they must be split up.

“No!” Alison shouted.

We all listened for some sound from Jason. There was nothing. “Hear me out,” Silver said. “My idea is that I should take him. I don’t need a new passport, I’ve got one, and I’ve got an Australian visa. I went there a couple of years ago with my family. I’ll never pass Jason off as a relative. He looks even less like me than like you. But I think I could say he was my stepson I’m taking home to his mother. That’s just an idea. I may come up with a better. I did say this was an outline plan.”

Alison was staring at him. She kept her eyes on him the whole time he was speaking.