When Silver went to collect the passports, he asked Jonny for the keys to 15 Russia Road. Jonny, after all, came there no more, he’d a home of sorts of his own and probably could have bought himself something far better. But Silver said nothing of any of that, he made no excuses for asking for the keys back nor tried to justify himself and his request just because Jonny had produced those passports. He had been well paid for that, it wasn’t a favor. Jonny didn’t argue. He gave Silver the keys without hesitation, which made Silver wonder if he had had copies cut. It was the day after we had bought the airline tickets that Silver asked me if he should have the locks changed. If he did this, he’d have to explain matters to his parents. He’d have to tell them some approximation to the truth, which was that he had invited a burglar into the house, let him have a bed in his flat and permitted him to bring his girlfriend with him.

September 22 and 23 were a watershed in our lives, until which we hoped everything would pass in a calm and serene manner, quietly leading up to those two days. Afterward all would be changed. But the changes we didn’t foresee were enormous, monumental cataclysms in our lives, against which the small ones, such as Jack and Erica Silverman returning to the house some weekends as they did in winter, Liv’s departure either with or without Wim, Niall’s three-month tenancy (a grand word for it), were insignificant. We did a lot of sitting about in the flat or on the roofs or in canalside cafés in those days, talking about the double escape and about what we’d do after it had been successfully accomplished. We started calling it the Exodus.