But it was too late. The taxi roared off. Iris stood in the drizzle and watched the headlights spin around the corner onto Abbotsbury Road, off to the Gargoyle Club in Mayfair, a different world from this quiet suburban neighborhood of wife and sons.

THEY LIVED ON THE fourth floor of a block of mansion flats called Oakwood Court, just off the grounds of poor ruined Holland House. Like the Desboroughs’ apartment, where tonight’s party had taken place, theirs was grand and spacious and in dire need of decorative updating. During the winter and spring, it was impossibly cold. Because the block had been built at the turn of the century, it did boast certain mod cons, as the British called them, such as central heating and hot water. But the ceilings were so lofty and the air outside so dank and chill most of the year that Iris never felt really warm until June, no matter how many cardigans and mufflers she wrapped around her shivering body, and she would dream of Rome or Ankara. She would remember the hot sun and pungent blue sky as you might remember a happy childhood, all the unpleasant threads snipped conveniently away.

The porter went home at eight P.M. sharp and would not return until six in the morning. Iris crossed the small, deserted lobby and took the lift to the fourth floor. It was the old-fashioned kind, so Iris had to open and close the door and the grille by herself. Her hands were shaking—her eyes stung with unshed tears. There were two flats on each floor, and the other one was empty. The family had moved out in January, suddenly and without explanation, and nobody had taken their place. Iris fumbled with the latchkey, tiptoed through the door, and shrugged off her raincoat. Mrs. Betts would be asleep in her small room off the kitchen; she’d have tucked in Kip and Jack at seven o’clock, and though they were good sleepers generally, parents could never be too quiet in the middle of the night, could they? Iris perched on the bench and wriggled off one shoe and then the other and sat for a moment—shoe in each hand—eyes closed. She thought of Sasha in his taxi, racing up the Kensington Road—no traffic, not at this hour—toward Mayfair and the Gargoyle Club. Iris had never seen the Gargoyle Club, but she had no trouble picturing it. Burgess and the others would be waiting for him, bottles ready.

Iris opened her eyes and rose from the bench. She stole in her stockings down the dark corridor and stopped by the door to the boys’ room.