I wanted to say, in one of my mother’s pet phrases, that there was no “have to” about it, but I could see that would have no effect on him.

“The fuss people make about a couple of thousand,” he said, thinking, I suppose, of Liv’s lost money as well. “It’s not megabucks, for God’s sake.”

Not to you. And there lies the difference. “So you told him to go ahead?”

“I told him I’d bring him the photographs as soon as Judy has them ready.” This was tantamount to a yes. “I didn’t tell him who they were for. I was putting off doing that, I know, even though he’d never go near the police.”

Silver was leaving, he was at the door, when he turned around and asked Jonny straight out if it was he who had assaulted Håkan Almquist and taken his backpack. He said he wouldn’t have been surprised to get the old answer, “It might have been.” But Jonny just looked at him. You read in thrillers about a man giving someone an “ugly” look—well, that describes a frequent expression of Jonny’s quite well. He gave Silver an ugly look. Silver was about six inches taller than he and six years younger but Jonny would still be a formidable opponent. He looked as if he was going to make for the door and head-butt him.

When nothing happened, Silver thought, nothing venture nothing have, and that if Jonny moved he could get outside and slam the door on him. He said, “What did you do with the money?”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Jonny said in a parody of Silver’s own often repeated advice. “I know where the fucking money is. It’s where no one else will find it.” And he started laughing.

It’s not megabucks, for God’s sake, I thought. Silver went downstairs and out into the street. All public transport but night buses had stopped and there were none of those about. He had got as far as Archway when a taxi came.

“That’s another way of getting rid of your capital,” I said, more nastily than I had ever spoken to him.

He didn’t say any more.

What is seen can’t be unseen. What is said can’t be unsaid. The cruel epithet, the insults and accusations, these may be forgiven but not forgotten. And surely forgiveness implies forgetting, because without forgetfulness all that was said and seen remains. It’s said that when the Catholic receives absolution for the sins he has confessed, he knows not only that they are forgiven but that they have passed utterly from the mind of God.

Silver and I were unable to forget but we could accept. I’ve accepted and now I can look back and, remembering, smile.