The police would no longer be watching the flat but John’s fantasies of the night before made her nervous. If there were suspicious-looking people in the street she would walk past the house. But who was or was not suspicious? The few people about looked ordinary enough. When she reached the house she fitted the key in the door, opened the door and walked in.

The hall was dark and drab, the stairs steep and badly carpeted. She counted them as she made a slow ascent – eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven. Eighty-seven brought her to the small landing and the door which still had a card by the bell which said ‘Hugh Warner’.

Matilda listened.

No sound. Nobody coming up or going down. Hugh had said that nearly everyone in the house went out to work all day every day. She ran her finger under the left hand edge of the landing carpet and found the string. He didn’t lie about this, she thought. She pulled. From under the carpet came the envelope. She put it in her bag. Two steps down in the fold of carpet over the step another string brought a second envelope. Two steps more, another tweak and she had the rest of the money. She was breathing hard. Should she or should she not go into the flat? It was not really necessary; he could manage without shoes. Curiosity won. She let herself in quickly, closing the door behind her. The flat looked undisturbed though there had been a search by the police. She did not believe in John’s Beclean filthy people.

She looked curiously round Hugh’s home. Books. He was considerably more erudite than he appeared. Some good pictures. A stack of records, a very nice record player. A bathroom she envied. She looked wistfully at a Greek sponge, decided to leave it. Clothes she must leave too. The bedroom was comfortable. She felt the big bed gingerly. The flat was friendly. A snapshot of a woman smiling at the camera from a garden chair, a black cat in her arms – unmistakably his mother, the nose feminine but large. ‘Well, Mother.’ Matilda looked at this version of Hugh. ‘You were not afraid that day.’ In the street a car door slammed. She heard voices, the insertion of a key in the front door. She looked around for a hiding place, moving out of sight of the door. Footsteps pounding up the stairs, a man and a girl talking.

‘My God, what stairs! How much further? My legs ache.’

‘Top floor, I’m afraid.’

‘Ooh!’ in a squeak. ‘You didn’t say the Matricide lived here.’

‘I did, stupid, you were too pissed to hear. Come on.’

‘It’s scary.’

‘Don’t be stupid. He isn’t in there.’