‘Not likely, is it?’ Spoder said. ‘Not in the way Jessa died. She was ill. He might have died around the same time, or later, but there’s no record of that anywhere. He could still be alive today. Probably is. I came to the conclusion he just took off after she died, and left the two young men to fend for themselves. He doesn’t seem cut out for family life.’

We agreed to leave it at that. I told him Jo was returning the next day, so I would not be thinking about ‘all these Dearth cops and their murders’ for a few days at least. Spoder sounded amused: I think we shared a feeling that we had found out everything about them that it was possible to know.

Afterwards, I checked my bank’s website. Nothing had changed for the better.

I went to my usual social media feeds, browsed around. Some of the people I knew who also lived on Raba were talking about the chaos the financial crash had brought to their lives – their worries, the desperate attempts to buy food, and so on. For them the crisis continued. I added nothing to the debate, with the uncomfortable feeling of almost certain responsibility looming around me.

But it was not a crisis for all: several people said that they had found cash machines that were working again, and, like Spoder, that their bank had promised everything would return to normal in the near future. A lot of messages went to and fro, about whether one should move to a different bank, how to do it, and so on. Again, I added nothing to the comments.

After this, I carried out a more detailed search for information about my own bank, but again received negative answers. Negative in the sense that nothing appeared to have changed for the better.

Thinking about that shadow of responsibility, I remembered the way I had used the software on the hotel key card to invoke a mutability safeguard, so-called. I thought I had uninstalled the program, or at least that part of it. I wondered if there was some residual effect still present. Should I check the program?

Nervously, I thought not. It was a beast. I went to the kitchen and made myself more coffee.

While I was there I found a long forgotten can of soup in the cupboard and warmed it up, trying to avoid thoughts about the mutability of old food. The can must have been sitting there at the back of the shelf, unused for at least a couple of years. The soup smelled all right so I consumed it anyway, but immediately afterwards I drove to the local grocery and purchased a few basics: milk, bread, eggs (thoughts of Spoder), cooked meats, salad vegetables, some cans of beer. I was astonished by the prices: most of my remaining cash was used up.