‘Believe me, we don’t need your money.’

He nodded again, thoughtfully. ‘I was trying to offer my help, not my money. Excuse me.’

I moved aside to let him leave my room. I had a sudden urge to run over to the roof and spit on him as he came out into the courtyard, but instead I ran to my bureau. I pulled my lighter out of my pocket and set fire to the business card I found on the blotting paper. I threw it out on to the lead sheeting. I watched the expensive card burn and crisp, a blue-green flame playing over the surface as some chemical ignited in the ink, the black ash curling up into the sky on the thermals.

I could not say for certain when I admitted to myself that there were reasons for my anxiety beyond Francis’s welfare. It was probably around this time, and the catalyst was refusing Michael’s offer. Until then, I had maintained a vision of Jessica and myself as stoics, going alone with Francis through thick and thin, spurning the rest of the world out of loyalty to him and to the ideal of friendship. After Michael’s visit, however, I was forced to admit to myself another motive far less laudable. My vision of Jessica on his staircase had been a kind of premonition, fostering a growing unease that lasted the whole term, and came into bloom as I watched the ash sail over the parapet. The abstract guilt I had felt over the summer matured into fear, and took up permanent residence. We were bound to Francis by more than our loyalty: if he cracked, or talked to someone else, there was a good chance we would all get caught. I did not think I would survive in prison.

18

LATER THAT WEEK, Lord Soulford made an attempt to contact his son. He used Jeremy as an intermediary, and had him call up Jessica to try to arrange a time to see him. I believe that Jessica had reached the same conclusion as I had about our need to preserve Francis from a possible confession, because although we never spoke about our motives openly, at one point we discussed not telling Francis about the visit at all. The excuse we used to ourselves was that he was too emotionally fragile to deal with the issues raised by his father, but the real reason was far more sinister, a selfish need to keep him isolated. We came up with the notion of inviting Jeremy down without Francis’s knowledge on the false promise of an interview, and then telling him when he arrived that his half-brother had changed his mind and did not want to see him. In the end, we both of us contemplated this option, and turned away from it in revulsion, a fact for which I am eternally grateful. It was dangerous to let them meet, but Francis could not continue to live the way he was indefinitely, and it was just possible that seeing Jeremy might be the first step towards a reconciliation with his father, and a return to stability. Besides, if we could arrange the meeting on our own terms we could control to a certain extent what was said. If we lost our place as middlemen, all control was gone.