The laundry bill was in fact from the Oriental Hotel. I didn’t point this out to Liz Headleand. I didn’t see why I should make things easy for her. I don’t think she’s ever been to Bangkok.

If Max von Sydow had been twenty years younger, he’d have been wonderful as Axel Heyst. But that’s beside the point too.

Anyway, we agreed that I should have a look at the photocopies before either of us made any further official inquiries. It’s not as though it’s a message in a bottle, or an SOS calling for a search party, is it, I said, and then we both looked at one another and though we didn’t say anything I could see that we were both thinking that perhaps it might, after all, be precisely that. I was still clutching the little red memo book, and I suddenly plucked up courage and said, ‘I say, do you think I could take this one with me now? Just for a look? I promise I’ll be ever so careful, but I really would like to start on it straightaway, I can see all sorts of fascinating things in there.’ I burbled on like this for a bit, and I could see she was embarrassed to say no outright. (People usually are. This is one of life’s more useful secrets.) All right, she said, but don’t lose it, will you. I swore I wouldn’t, and slipped it into my bag, thanked her for the drink, and away I went.

I must say I had an odd evening, reading Stephen’s orts and fragments. You see, I was with Stephen on his last night in London. It was ghastly. Really ghastly. I don’t like to think of it at all. He must have had an appalling flight. I can’t think what came over me. No wonder he ran away. Though of course he was on his way out anyway. It wasn’t me that drove him off. I must try to remember that. Whatever happened, it wasn’t all my fault.

It was a terrible evening. March 1985. Picture Stephen Cox and comrade Hattie Osborne, on their way to their elderly friend Molly Lansdowne, in the back of a taxi. They are to dine with her, à trois, before moving on to the seventieth birthday party of another friend, Marjorie Kinsman. Neither of them can remember how this arrangement stole upon them. It has just happened, and they have surrendered to it. They have to go to Marjorie’s, for over the years, severally and together, they have drunk many pints of her whisky and vodka, and they must turn up to celebrate her unlikely survival. But why add Molly to the evening’s jaunt? She must have added herself.