‘Now I’m old Koji.’ He grinned. ‘But it’s a pity, you’re too late.’ He stroked the print wistfully. ‘Sister has gone.’ He glanced up at June and added, ‘You look like her, you know.’

So that was who he was. Or claimed to be anyway. Her great-uncle. She surveyed him with suspicion. She had never met him before. At least he wasn’t a vagrant, but he might be more of a risk. What if he called her parents?

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked him.

‘What are you doing here, she asks! Young people have no manners. But that’s the way of it, isn’t it. That’s just how it goes.’ He looked at her through narrowing eyes.

He had a right to be irate, she thought; she had attacked him, after all. She wondered why he hadn’t asked why she was here.

It was now she noticed his box of cleaning products. The old man picked up the bike chain, put it on a news sheet and wiped his hands with a rag. In the sitting room, she saw that the couch cushions were propped up, airing. The windows were open to the night, the wood surfaces had been oiled and a bottle of disinfectant sat on the carved chest. She had caught the old man cleaning.

And she noticed something else. A bowling bag sitting on the floor, a clean shirt draped across it. These were his clothes, his things. So he planned to stay?

‘Still, it’s Junko,’ he said. ‘Imagine!’ He shook his head, amazed. And she suddenly guessed that he had no right to be here either. Was he as worried as she was about being flushed out?

Alright, dude, she thought. Maybe they’d have to hide out together. But she kept him in her sights as she bent for the rag to clean her hands.

The old man made himself at home in the days that followed, getting up early to start his passive-aggressive cleaning. June would find him stripped down to a pair of shorts to vacuum or scrub. He was ancient and tireless, an energetic bag of bones, darting back and forth to make violent thrusts at cobwebs. His manner let June know she was to blame for the dirt and dust. He washed the sofa cushions repeatedly and was angry about the cat. He seemed to blame her for that too, as if she’d let it in.