Alison’s passport describes her as being called Pamela Mary Rogers, a British citizen, born on March 19, 1949. In his passport Andrew is Gerald Rogers, born on June 3, 1951. Jason has become James Desai, and because he was tall Silver had decreed his date of birth to be ten, not eight, years before, but kept to its true date of November 7, lest anyone ask him. In some circumstances you could ask a child to lie but not about his birthday. It must be the most important date in his year. Each passport has an Australian visa in the appropriate place, or perhaps I should say a false Australian visa. Only in Silver’s was the visa authentic.

We took the passports round to 4E as soon as Silver had collected them from Jonny. Andrew contemplated them in silence, shaking his head.

“Five thousand pounds,” he said at last, and repeated it. “Five thousand pounds.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Alison said.

“When I was a child, a man earning £5,000 a year was rich. You could buy a very nice house for £5,000. You could buy a house and a car.”

This seemed irrelevant to me. After all, when his father was a child you could probably buy a house and a car for five hundred pounds and in his grandfather’s youth for fifty. What was clear was that he was going to demur at the cost and not just demur, refuse to pay. Silver, who had already taken £2,000 off, said, “I negotiated a price. It’s come down to £3,000.”

Of course he hadn’t negotiated a price. He was going to pay it out of his own pocket. If Andrew saw this he gave no sign of it. He just said a grudging “all right,” picked up all three passports and put them in the table drawer. Alison asked about flights to Australia. How? When? Silver suggested two weeks’ time. It might be a good idea to fix a date immediately and he would buy the tickets. Economy class, Andrew said, he hoped that was understood. Silver was on the edge of anger but he controlled it.

“Look, I’m taking it that you do want to do this? You want to get away from here and to Sydney?”

“Of course we do,” Alison said, “and we’re enormously grateful to you. I don’t know why you should have done all this for us, we think it’s angelic of you. You must never think we don’t appreciate it.”

Silver nodded, unsmiling. “So shall we say September eighteenth? It’s a Saturday, just over two weeks from now. I’ll take Jason that day and I suggest you follow twenty-four hours later on the Sunday.”

“If you like.” Alison looked nervous now that things were becoming so definite. “I don’t mean that, I mean anything you say, we’re in your hands.”