And they continued to discuss severed bones, heads, feet and ears for some time. The use of, in the taking of hostages and the threatening of nearest and dearest. The use of, in emotional blackmail. They mentioned Van Gogh and Alix’s murderer-friend Paul Whitmore. They discussed jokes about finger bones found in soup in Chinese restaurants, about greyhounds discovered in the deep freezes of curry takeaways. And were there not stories, Alix wondered, about American soldiers in the Vietnam war collecting bags full of Viet Cong ears and sending samples back to their appalled girlfriends?

‘But those are just stories,’ protested Liz. ‘Like the Viet Cong playing Russian roulette. Atrocity stories. That thing on my desk is real. I promise you.’

‘You must ask Brian when he last heard from Stephen,’ she continued, modulating her tone to indicate seriousness. We must try to work out who heard from him last. Can you remember when he left?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Alix. Was it the year we came up north? I know he came up here to see us at least once. But he knew all sorts of people we don’t know, who may have much more recent news. Like that woman Hattie.’

‘I never went to his flat,’ said Liz.

‘Nobody ever went to his flat,’ said Alix. ‘He was the mystery man.’

‘Do you think I ought to report this package?’

‘I don’t see why. A bundle of manuscripts isn’t an offence, is it?’

They both laughed.

‘Well,’ said Liz, ‘you’re right. I’d better read the stuff. But I don’t know where to begin. Which bit did he mean me to read first?’

‘The finger bones.’

‘Yes. Of course,’ said Liz.

‘And after that, I guess, you can choose. Let me know how you get on.’

‘He should have sent it to you, really,’ said Liz, provocatively. ‘It’s you that’s good at cataloguing and deciphering manuscripts and that kind of stuff.’

‘And it’s you that’s good at crazy people,’ said Alix, refusing to be drawn, and trying not to think of the letters of her late employer, the poet Howard Beaver, which she was struggling, slowly, to collate. Come to think of it, the last thing she ever wanted to see was another heap of handwritten, ill-assorted papers. Liz was welcome to the lot.

‘But you will come and look?’ asked Liz.

‘Oh yes,’ said Alix, insincerely. ‘Yes, I’ll come and look. But you must have the first crack at the code.’

‘Yes,’ echoed Liz, a little hollowly. ‘Yes, at the code.’

Somehow she knew that Alix would not come. Alix never came to London these days. Alix, Liz suspected, had better things to do.