This, Ever had eaten before; the meat was shredded off the bone, he knew to plum sauce the pancake and put a little cucumber and spring onion and then the duck. He was relieved to have that knowledge and knew it would be delicious. But first he poured himself another large glass of the white, dropped a slightly melted cluster of iceberg cubes into the glass and drank. And drank. What was he doing? The silence of the wheels on the polished floor could be heard as a smooth absence and she returned with a little purple pill. A half.

‘Diazepam, you’ll feel calmer in half an hour, don’t worry about mixing it with alcohol, it’s not going to hurt you, you just shouldn’t drive. But you can stay here.’

Ever went quiet, groin quiet, at least.

In acknowledgement of the obviosity of the male, Lomita quickly followed –

‘I have an en-suite guest bedroom, of course. You are more than welcome.’

She smiled an ‘end to all that’ smile.

‘So basically what, after you have viewed these paintings, which I presume you have seen before anyway, do you want to do with them?’

A very good point, as Ever could not tell her what his real desire was, even he considered it to be tinged, to say the least, with an imbalance. A lack of sane proportion to the act committed.

‘Buy them? Own them? What, tell the guy he’s a schmuck? I can guarantee he already knows that. Anybody with money knows that deep down, that’s why they’ve got the money, to cover it up. That’s why they worked so hard in the first place, and if they didn’t work hard and it just came to them, well—’

She let the ‘well’ hang, as the conclusion to her statement didn’t demand a voice. It was obvious.

He was preparing his second pancake, with the air velveting over him, the wine giving him a glow, feeling a little connection to the soul that he liked to connect with, but rarely did. She popped a bigger pill of a question.

‘You are not contemplating revenge, are you?’

‘What do you mean?’

He knew full well she knew.

‘On him, what’s his name again?’

‘I never told you. Ingmar Lorken.’

‘Oh my, yes, we’ve all heard of him.’

‘I don’t think so, not revenge.’

He lied, with no conviction at all.

She seemed to ignore this unconvincing denial.

‘What would you do? Hurt him? His family? He already feels totally unimportant – that’s why he collects things that are important.’

The collector’s psychological profile. And then with the laugh, really coming from deep in her throat.

‘Or do you want to kill him? Complete his collection.’