“Thank you.” He was afraid his emotions might bleed out into his voice, but he sounded steady, reassuring, in control. “Those look very comfortable. Let’s sit down so we can talk.”

Christopher sat. Donald didn’t.

“So,” Christopher said after a minute. His face was stretched wide by a ghastly, pleading smile. “What’s this all about?”

“I think we need to have a little chat. A chat about money.”

He hadn’t fully defined his plan for this stage of the operation, but he’d known their conversation would take place in the kitchen, and he’d been confident something would occur to him. As it turned out, it was the scent from the barely-cooled deep-fat fryer that caught his attention.

“Hello again.”

He’d been expecting Vic but it was his daughter who answered the door. He looked at her bright eyes and confident smile and found he was breathless.

“Are you after my dad?”

“Is he free?”

She stood aside to let him pass. “Come on in. I think he’s getting dressed.”

He stood awkwardly in the living room, suddenly unsure where to put his arms. The envelope stuffed with cash was heavy in his left-hand suit pocket, but the photographs in the right felt heavier. Did she know who her father was?

“You’re Donald, aren’t you?” she said.

“That’s me.”

“I’m Ellen.”

When did his body become so ungainly, so enormous? And how did you stand normally in the middle of a room? Last night he’d known just what to do, how to plunge Christopher’s hand into the hot oil, how to hold him still while he shrieked and sobbed and promised. Afterwards, when he’d taken the cash from the till, he’d sat Christopher on one of the chairs and called an ambulance. Christopher had his name and knew his face, but that was the risk you took when you started out. He’d made his first investment. Had he got it right? In his pocket, his nervous fingers encountered the little strawberry eraser.

“It’s all right,” she said to him.

“I’m sorry?”

“My dad likes you. He thinks you’ve got potential.”

So she did know. Or did she? Could a girl as sweet as Ellen live with knowing all of that, knowing about money in envelopes and hands in deep-fat fryers?

“You know.” He swallowed. “Last night, I… ”

“Don’t.” She shook her head. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I don’t ever want to know.”

“But you know who I am?”

“You work for my dad. My dad works hard. Maybe one day you’ll work hard too. That’s all I ever want to hear from you.”

He took his hand out of his pocket and held his palm flat. In the centre was the strawberry eraser.

“I think this is yours.”

“Where’d you find that?”

“I stole it,” he said. “From the drawer in your dad’s desk.”

Delicately, she folded his fingers around the strawberry. The touch sent a sweet freeze along his spine. Someone was coming down the stairs.