‘Keep it for now. Let’s see what we decide,’ she said.

Keep it for now. I remember now. She said it because she knew that she could trust me. And she trusted me with it because she knew I didn’t care about it. I never cared about money. I was never one of those people who did things with money. I’d met plenty of those others who could change everything with their money. They’d twist the world to do whatever they wanted it to.

And this guy, Ebadi, he could be one of these people. Men who turned up at his door in the dead of night. Men who turned up at the drop of enough money to rebuild, refurbish and clean up. I look up and I am at the door of 42B. The memories keep drawing me away so that my attention is splintered. I’m aware of it only once I am out of it. But I have to focus harder and harder to remain here. This burglar alarm. This incontrovertible thing. I have to think of a way around it.

22

Sunday

On my way through Hyde Park, I see spare food left on the bench. I carefully smooth the aluminium wrapping out before folding it into my pockets. The clean parts of the sandwiches I eat in a bite or two.

When I pass the children’s play area, I feel a thud as I remember that this is where Squire attacked me. I wonder whether the police will have done their investigations by now. And what has Squire told the police? There’s no value in him lying to them, but value has multiple meanings when you live as Squire and I do.

I stay in the Green Zone and navigate the whole of Hyde Park, but the way I have carved up London into zones feels too flimsy now. It’s always been quite plastic, bending as money changed the character of the places, but now after what has happened, with Squire and with the murdered woman at 42B, I have to reorder these zones.

The grass’s damp scent reaches me, but I shrug it off. Memories encourage ghosts. And even as I think it I feel Rory catch my hand as he used to when he was small. He would catch it and run, wanting me to outrun him and pull him along so that he could go faster than his body would allow. Little, beautiful Rory.

And then we grew up.

He called me a few times when he got the job in London but it never worked. When we spoke as adults we became children again. Perhaps that was the problem. Ultimately, we were condemned to live in an imperfectly remembered and therefore imperfect past.