Niall had found himself a girlfriend and was spending the night at her place, was thinking of moving in with her. For the first time since I came to 15 Russia Road, Silver and I were alone. There had been times when I had longed for this, when it had seemed something to dream of, and that if it ever happened all would be bliss, all would be a kind of everlasting honeymoon. But now I felt afraid. I even wondered how we’d be together with no one else to talk to or escape from or complain about. But I was very tired, which perhaps accounted for it, and we had had a bad shock, been through a dreadful time, though not so dreadful as poor Wim had.

The next day Silver and I were both wanted at the police station. No one said so but it was plain Jonny hadn’t yet been found. A policeman, who I think was a detective inspector, was perfectly polite but I could tell he didn’t believe a lot of the things we said, though we told the strict truth. He had special difficulties with Liv’s living in the flat while Jonny lived elsewhere and was openly incredulous when we said that she had left the house within hours of the attack on Wim. Nor did he seem to believe us when we said we had no idea where she was. We had given him the Almquists’ address and phone number in Kiruna. I told him about her mother’s friend who lived somewhere on the northern fringes of London. Silver told him about the Elgin Avenue hotel. Whether the police ever followed any of this up we never found out.

We went off on a routine visit to 4E and had a surprise. Two days before, the scaffolding between the end of the terrace and Peterborough Avenue was still there. This evening it was gone. No trace of it remained but a couple of rusty clamps and a plastic bag full of the builders’ cigarette ends lying under the ilexes among the grass and weeds. Its removal seemed unimportant, as we had long ceased to get into the flat by that means.

We had bought food on the way back from the police station, rather a lot of food because we hoped it might be the last we’d ever have to take up to 4E. We were each carrying two Sainsbury’s bags. Our heads were so full of Wim and the police distrust of us, of Jonny and the mystery of where Liv might have gone, that we had forgotten the existence of the Nylands and came up the stairs talking to each other. The bags were heavy and, used to these staircases as we were, we couldn’t run up as we might have done if empty-handed.