Jenö followed. ‘Hullo,’ he said. He had walked in whistling, as if a packet of good news had fallen on his lap. I suppose it had; the police weren’t going to arrest him: that was reason enough to make a man whistle. There was a certain wizardry in Charlotte’s eyes too: perhaps she was still fasting.

‘We’ve been at school—’

‘Masterminding a defence,’ I said.

‘Yes.’ She looked at me oddly. ‘Exactly.’

I wanted to know what was going on, but I also didn’t want to have to ask. Her heeled boot was on my note. Jenö went to the fire, which was dead, and fanned the coals. A flame began to flare. The magic touch.

‘How do you feel about the tribunal?’ I asked him.

It was almost comic, how grave both of them became.

‘Jenö feels really bad about it,’ she said (as if Jenö were unable to ever speak of the matter directly). There was that stitch in her forehead again. ‘He lost all sense of himself. You must know that feeling. After a faint.’

‘Sure,’ I said, though I didn’t. After a faint, I hardly had enough energy to stand, never mind box someone’s lights out.

‘Do you think you could lend something for Walter to wear? He can’t afford a new suit. And you’re the same size.’

‘All right.’

Jenö sat bonelessly on the chair. He didn’t look like he felt bad at all; instead, he looked dreamily to the parkland’s river and sheep. Charlotte went to the easel and flipped a few sheets over, rubbing out some green chalked marks, which came off on her hand. Then she scrunched the paper into a ball. Jenö frowned.

I held Walter’s spectacles in my pocket: feeling their sleek curves. ‘I was at the baker’s on Saturday morning, Jenö. The one near the station.’

I watched in her expression how she suppressed her interest.

‘You came past. I’d just finished at the studio.’

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Jenö said at last. ‘Too keyed up.’

‘It’s near Reinhardt’s cobbler’s.’

‘Yes. I went to talk to Sommer.’

‘Did you?’ Charlotte said. ‘You didn’t tell me that.’

‘At four in the morning?’

I wanted to coax from him all the words he was stopping himself from saying but I didn’t know how. When they had come in both of them had seemed almost high; now Jenö was alert and quick-witted. I noticed his throat work. ‘I went to apologise.’

‘You have to tell me these things,’ she said. ‘There can’t be any secrets.’

‘And what did Sommer say?’

‘Obviously he didn’t want to talk to me for long. I just told him how sorry I was.’ He offered up his hands, a mea culpa. ‘I admitted it was my fault. That the faint had made me confused. That I’d lost my wits.’