“Because we have to get him in on this. We have to take him into our confidence. The ideal thing would be if you could sort of pave the way and then maybe we could all meet and—well, tell him.”

“I’ll call him tomorrow.” She grinned. “Who knows what may come of it?” Outside the Nylands’ front door she stopped, turned, and said to me, “I just want to say, Clodagh, you know I’m not interested in Silver anymore, don’t you? I love him, I really do, but not like that. Not anymore. And he doesn’t like me like that. I just want you to know, though I expect you do already.”

Honesty is mostly best. “No, I didn’t already. Thanks. Thanks a lot.” I felt like laughing and singing, though I knew this didn’t solve everything or even anything much. I smiled at her.

“Only I thought you’d been a bit cold with me and you’re not really a cold person, are you?”

“No. No, I’m not.”

I don’t know which of us made the first move. But she put her arms around me and I put mine around her and we hugged each other there on the marble step halfway up the empty echoing house. It’s a good feeling, your enemy turning into your friend in the twinkling of an eye. Just a few words said, a misunderstanding cleared up, the world changed.

Andrew’s eye looked out at us through the tiny glass hole in the door. Bolts were drawn, a chain removed, and he let us in. He had managed to grow a small mustache about as thick as his eyebrows. It did quite a lot to alter his appearance but his suspicious nature was unchanged. He had been prepared for Judy’s coming but he was still apprehensive and later, while she was going about the flat with Alison looking for a suitable place to take her shots, he questioned me—in fact, he interrogated me—as to her trustworthiness. How well did I know her? How could he know she wouldn’t just take her pictures to the police?

“I can only tell you she won’t do that,” I said. “If you don’t want her to take your photographs, you’d better say now and we’ll go. But there’s no one else and you have to have photos for your passports.”

He nodded, not entirely convinced. Where was Silver? Why hadn’t he come? Did I realize this was the first time Silver hadn’t come?