There have been efforts, too, to prepare the room for its current inmates. There are two fresh towels folded on the sofa bed. A bottle of mineral water, with two glasses, on the bedside table. Somebody has made up a child-size mattress on the floor, with a flannel duvet cover depicting teddy bears in space rockets.

There is one window rather high up, with bars across it. The high barred window makes Rat feel like a prisoner, but she knows that Morgan will find it reassuring. She climbs up on the ledge to look out the window. It looks straight into someone else’s pantry.

Kate, turning off the downstairs lights, sticks her head round the door to say goodnight. She is looking harried. “Have you got everything you need?” she asks. “Sleep as late as you like tomorrow. I take Artie to school at about half past seven, so you’ll have the house to yourselves. Help yourselves to breakfast, lunch, whatever. Gillem’s studio is at the end of the garden. I’ve told him to keep an ear out for you. If you need something, you can knock on his door. I’ve left my office number on the dining room table. And then Mirjana will be in in the afternoon. Has Gillem explained to you about the burglar alarm? Oh, never mind—I’ll explain to you how it works tomorrow. I should be back about six.” She lingers in the doorway, looking around the room. “Goodness, it is a bit cramped in here. Are you sure you’ll be all right? I left the Calpol on the kitchen counter, along with the thermometer. If Morgan isn’t any better tomorrow, I think we ought to take him round to our pediatrician, don’t you, Celia?”

Rat and Morgan breathe easier when she leaves. They aren’t used to such strenuous hospitality.

Morgan has taken possession of the sofa bed—ever since Thierry, he’s gotten a bit fussy about where he sleeps. So Rat winds up on the child’s mattress on the floor. This way, if an intruder comes through the door, it’s Rat who’s on the front line.

Rat reaches a hand up to Morgan’s forehead. It’s sweaty, which she figures is a good sign. The medicine must be bringing down his fever.

“So that’s your brother.” Morgan’s knitting his brow in an expression of comic puzzlement.

“Putain—so it is.”

“How old did they say he was, again?”

“Eight?”

“And he still sucks his thumb and goes around with a stuffed toy?”

Rat laughs. She tries to get into her head that this child glimpsed on the stairs is indeed her brother, one of the very few relatives she’s ever met, that he is her biological kin and Morgan isn’t, but it doesn’t make sense to her.

“Why’d you have to tell the man I was scared of sharks?”