They consulted together by the desk. Rose was hoarsely aggrieved; she was like a female impersonator, she bore her womanhood with an unnatural emphasis even while she scorned it in her creased stockings and her weather-exposed face. The charcoal shifted in the stove; the room was over-heated in the mild late summer evening. A notice on the wall described a body found in the Thames, or rather the body’s clothes: wool vest, wool pants, wool shirt with blue stripes, size ten boots, blue serge suit worn at the elbows, fifteen-and-a-half celluloid collar. They couldn’t find anything to say about the body, except its measurements, it was just an ordinary body.

‘Come along,’ the constable said. He was interested, he was glad to be going, but he couldn’t help being embarrassed by his company, a small boy in pyjamas. His nose smelt something, he didn’t know what, but he smarted at the sight of the amusement they caused: the pubs had closed and the streets were full again of men making as long a day of it as they could. He hurried through the less frequented streets, chose the darker pavements, wouldn’t loiter, and Philip wanted more and more to loiter, pulling at his hand, dragging with his feet. He dreaded the sight of Mrs Baines waiting in the hall: he knew now that she was dead. The sergeant’s mouthings had conveyed that; but she wasn’t buried; she wasn’t out of sight; he was going to see a dead person in the hall when the door opened.

The light was on in the basement, and to his relief the constable made for the area steps. Perhaps he wouldn’t have to see Mrs Baines at all. The constable knocked on the door because it was too dark to see the bell, and Baines answered. He stood there in the doorway of the neat bright basement room and you could see the sad complacent plausible sentence he had prepared wither at the sight of Philip; he hadn’t expected Philip to return like that in the policeman’s company. He had to begin thinking all over again; he wasn’t a deceptive man; if it hadn’t been for Emmy he would have been quite ready to let the truth lead him where it would.

‘Mr Baines?’ the constable asked.

He nodded; he hadn’t found the right words; he was daunted by the shrewd knowing face, the sudden appearance of Philip there.

‘This little boy from here?’