‘Thanks,’ he says, annoyed that he is making himself more memorable. Easy to imagine this chipper bloke in a dim police interview room. Yeah, the fisherman. I remember him clearly. Maybe he should have done one key at one locksmith and the other at a different one. Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut. In the future, he’ll be more careful.

He pays cash, pockets the keys and heads back to the car. He drives to another shopping strip, with a hardware store. He finds an uninterested teenager leaning on his elbow over the paint desk.

‘Hi, just need something that matches this.’ He lays the paint chip on the counter.

‘Sure, how much?’

‘Enough for ten metres.’

It takes five minutes to mix. When it’s done, the youth paints a spot, blow dries it and compares the dry paint to the chip. It looks perfect.

‘Great,’ he says, taking the can.

The youth picks up the chip.

‘I need that,’ he says quickly.

‘Sorry?’ The teenager looks at him.

‘The chip, give it to me.’

‘Okay, sorry, I didn’t…’

He takes the chip from the teenager’s hand and turns, striding towards the checkout.

Back at the house, wearing his gloves and hat once more, he tests the new keys and finds they both slide in and turn smoothly. The door unlocks. He can return whenever he wants. Some months from now, when the place isn’t booked, he can slip in and uninstall the cameras.

His repairs have dried while he has been out. In the kitchen, he lays out a sheet of newspaper before returning to the hallway to study the wall for a moment, noting the original paintwork, the telling strokes. It was clearly a roller job, using decent paint that has been there for a while. His tin is enough to do the entire wall if he needs to. He has drop sheets with him. The fine sandpaper rasps as he smooths the edges of the new plaster. Then he cleans it with an alcohol wipe, fills the paint tray and begins rolling it on, covering only the new square of wall and ten centimetres around it.

While it dries, he repacks all but a few of the white boxes into his suitcases. Again, he finds the street empty when he opens the door. He quickly drags the suitcases back out to the rental, stowing them in the boot.

He packs up the last of his things, pulls a chair out from the table, half-closes the curtains, tips a third of the complimentary carton of milk down the sink. He sprays air freshener, hoping to neutralise the paint smell. He walks to the bedroom, pulls a small ziplock bag from his pocket and opens it to pluck out one of the long blonde hairs inside. He lays it on a pillow. He’d collected them from the drain at a swimming pool across town.