She fetched her bunch of keys from the Welsh dresser drawer. ‘Without my glasses, and I’ve left them in the study, I can’t tell which key is which, A.P. As you can see, they all have tags labelling them.’

‘Are your spare burglar alarm keys among them?’

‘Where else would I keep them?’

‘Where they’re not labelled and waiting for burglars to find them. They could then switch off the bell and your neighbours would think it a false alarm. The flat could be emptied before you got back, and your study vandalized, including the manuscript you’re working on being torn to shreds. Really, Gran!’

A.P. paused only for breath. ‘And at night they’d have time to club you on the head in your bed before leaving, to stop you from phoning the police.’

‘What a horrific imagination you have, A.P.’

‘Imagination is how I’d like it to stay. I shouldn’t think Granddad took the risks you take.’

‘He was security mad, love. I have neither time nor patience to be. When I think how people, when I was young, didn’t bother locking their doors – well, I ask myself, how did we get from that to this.’

‘What you just said, Gran, includes that you’re not young any more. And it seems to me that you need watching over.’

‘I am not yet in my dotage, A.P.!’

‘But you don’t bother taking care of yourself, do you?’

Perhaps, thought Marianne, because there was always someone who took care of me. Poignancy, though, made this sermon from her grandson nonetheless amusing.

‘That’s why I came here tonight,’ he went on. ‘I decided that the only way to make sure you don’t fall off a ladder is to transfer what’s on your top shelves to the lower ones. That bunch of keys must be dealt with, too.’

‘Go right ahead, I’m sure you don’t need me to organize you,’ Marianne replied.

Nor did he, and tears stung her eyelids as she watched him set to work. He would never bring her the traditional joys of a Jewish grandmother. But his displaying so graphically his concern for her was a compensation she could not have envisaged.

Chapter Four

While Marianne was trying to decide how best to approach the matter Jake had confided to her he rang up, beside himself with anxiety, to tell her it was now out of their hands.

Laura had been rushed by ambulance to the Royal Free Hospital. What had at first seemed just a heavy menstrual period had escalated into a frightening haemorrhage, and it was in a gynaecological ward that Marianne next saw her.