In the hotel room, weeks later, Valia sat at the small desk and sighed out of her cardigan, sipped her coffee, held her thin body in the correct posture. Her back and stomach were strong. A matter of genes. Introduced to the room, at the end of the bedspread, was a bag of letters that conveyed sympathies—not many of these—and above this bag lay an indentation in the sheets; the outline of a movement, the impression of a solitary person who’d laid down with her legs curled up. She and Achilles didn’t speak at the funeral: they put Penny in the ground and Valia came back to the hotel, back into bed, restless. The glass of water on the bedside table was half empty and stale.

She looked up at the bare walls of the room. Couldn’t they nail up some pictures? Why couldn’t Lucky find a job? Why, Valia wondered, wasn’t I kinder to Penny?

Valia asked Lucky: ‘Do you remember what I said that night after Penny came back from Canberra?’

‘I can’t remember,’ said Lucky.

‘I took her to the bedroom and then I came out to the kitchen and you said: “How is she?” and I said: “Still obstinate”, and I felt happy with that description, as if I finally matched my sister with a word.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because I’m ashamed! Why else would I mention it?’

In the afternoon, Lucky heard a light knock on the door, but instead of answering he waited for the knock to come again. If it were important, they’d keep banging. He now sat at the desk; Valia lay on the bed.

‘A man named Ian Asquith is downstairs asking to see you,’ said a hotel worker through the door.

‘I’ll come down,’ said Lucky.

‘Bring me back a glass of something,’ said Valia.

The long curtains in the hotel bar were made of thick amber velvet that easily concealed the two hotel cats. In the shadowed corner a piano had been left open for guests. At a table in the bright middle of the room, Asquith stood up, offered his condolences, and they shook hands and sat, both men pale in the uniform black of their clothing.

‘How did you find me?’ Lucky wanted to know.

‘I paid a policeman.’

Asquith continued: ‘I’d heard about your loss but did not attend the funeral. Terrible thing. A nightmare come to life.’

‘You didn’t know Penny. We wouldn’t expect you to come.’

Asquith touched an envelope through the fabric of his jacket pocket. Lucky noticed the way the Englishman’s legs twitched. Asquith smelled of alcohol.

‘Do you know how the fire started?’ asked Asquith.

‘The police think it was deliberately lit.’

‘Good grief.’

‘Last I heard from the police, they still suspected Valia’s father, who is a maniac in some ways. But he didn’t do this.’