The blonde-dyed librarian had sparked the idea. The memory of her voice had trailed him as he was going down the stairs, the meaningful way she had raised her God-white head and said: ‘You can have it out for one more week,’ after first revealing that no one would know that it was Dyer who had ordered Madrugada’s monograph. Something in her manner had recalled his editor when he commissioned Dyer’s valedictory piece on South America. It moved Dyer to treat the extension of a recondite library book with the respect that he once unfailingly approached every deadline. The date was arbitrary, of no significance at all, but it gave him another six days to work out what to do.

For now, until 8 p.m. the following Tuesday, Marvar’s post-it note was safe between the pages of a book that no one was likely to want to read.

Dyer had needed something extraordinary to motivate him, to take hold of his spirit. Now he had it. Marvar’s hard-edged folder had given Dyer a purpose and shamed him out of his morose mood.

He had not forgotten Gilles’s touchline advice on how to avoid leaving a digital footprint. ‘Stay away from cameras. Buy a pack of SIM cards, and rotate them so they can’t get a pattern. And use a line of poetry for your password, no one will ever hack it.’

At the Vodafone store in Cornmarket, Dyer paid £5 for a pack of ten SIM cards. Before returning home, he stopped off at the post office in Walton Street and bought two padded brown envelopes.

Into the smaller one, he inserted his interview with Marvar, addressing it to himself. He sealed this up and folded it, along with a short letter, into the larger envelope, which he posted to a separate address copied from a page in his notebook that he then tore out and threw away, along with the notes for his code.

The letter read:

Dear Miranda,

Please forgive me for intruding on you out of the blue. I’m aware this request is unusual, but would you keep the enclosed package safe for me? I will explain when we next meet (better for tedious reasons face to face, and not by email/phone). Meanwhile, find below a list of books about the Tupi.

With fond regards,

abáûera,

John Dyer

Moments later, Dyer was unlocking his front door when he heard the telephone whining in the kitchen. He raced inside, dropping the games bag onto the table, and ran to answer it.

‘Hello?’ came a voice from upstairs. ‘Hello?’

Just the dialling tone. Marvar?

‘It’s all right, it’s me, Magda,’ he shouted.

She said something he couldn’t make out over the noise of the hoover.

He called ring-back. The number was ex-directory. Updark? The journalist? Someone else?

Magda appeared, a tubby blonde whose hangdog expression reminded him of his college scout.