Suppose Sean Francis was right and Andrew and Alison were not the suitable parents for Jason they thought they were? Was it possible that the social services knew best? I’d read what the newspapers said. Andrew and Alison were rejected because Jason was of mixed race and they weren’t. But there could be other reasons for that rejection, additional reasons. You wouldn’t have called theirs a loving relationship, for instance. Perhaps it had been once but by now all the love seemed on Alison’s side. Andrew was impatient with her, rude, and bad-tempered, and, although he had almost got what he apparently wanted, discontented. The fact couldn’t be got away from that they had abducted Jason. For all I knew, that might be a crime, it was certainly a serious offense. Silver had felt he was growing old when he warned me off inviting Wim into the Houghtons’ house, and now, feeling the pull of prudence, I too seemed to be moving into an unwelcome maturity.

I thrust it away. Roll on September 22; it couldn’t come soon enough for me.

We went to the cinema. We went to the pub afterward. Now we had time to kill we had started behaving like other people. On the way home we made a diversion to check that the scaffolding between the end of the terrace in Torrington Gardens and Peterborough Avenue was still there, though it no longer mattered very much whether it was there or not. We mostly entered by the front door and the stairs. All the lights in 4E were out, and not only those. The whole house was in darkness. We were walking slowly along Torrington Gardens toward the burned houses when the sound of a taxi’s diesel engine made us turn around. It had drawn up outside No. 4. Two people got out of it, we could see them quite clearly in the lamp light. The man paid the driver and he too got out to help them with their luggage, some of which was piled on the seat beside him. The woman ran up the steps and opened the front door.

We looked at each other. These must be the Nylands. I tried to remember who had told us they were an elderly couple. Was it Andrew? Had he ever seen them? When you’re our age you think everyone over forty is old but Andrew was forty. I’m bad at ages and no doubt was worse then, but these two were younger than my parents. They seemed smartly dressed, though it was hard to tell from that distance. They were thin, strong, and light on their feet. She had been carrying a case in each hand when she ran up those steps. We said to each other simultaneously, the same thought coming to each of us, that we were glad the scaffolding was still there. For safety’s sake we might have to use it.