“D’you care how I have it? D’you really think the way you go on, the way you shut me out, I’m going to be there to have it one way or the other?” I’d started shouting, forgetful of the people not far below us. “We were happy and you’ve made us miserable. You never told me a word of this plan of yours, you never consulted me. It was as much of a surprise to me as it was to them.”

He could be so cold and quiet. “I’ve made us miserable? I think you’re forgetting your hand in it.”

I should have asked then but I didn’t. I jumped up and ran away from him across the tarpaulin, not going carefully, not troubling where I set my feet, but running as if I were on solid ground. The damaged timbers creaked. I jumped onto the slates on the other side, making a lot of noise about it. He was watching me, blank-faced, not as if he cared what happened to me but out of mere interest in folly. I had looked back once but not again. I ran on, crying while I ran, the tears still coming while I climbed through our window. Judy was back, sitting with Niall, sharing a bottle of wine and a joint. Hours passed before Silver came to bed. He lay quite still for a minute or two, then turned his back on me.

It was Jonny who Silver intended to ask about the passports. He told me this in the neutral cool voice he had begun using when he spoke to me. It was a far from ideal plan but it was the only one he could think of. Jonny was the only criminal he knew.

“And don’t ask me what it’s going to cost,” he said.

“I was going to ask you if it’s wise to let Jonny in on this.”

“Probably not, but who else is there to ask? You have to remember that whatever happens and whatever he does, he’d never, never go to the police.”