The prospect felt not merely remote but irrelevant to the life I was living just now. “No,” Roy said as if he doubted I’d misunderstood, “what were you doing at the library?”

“The same as you and Bella did.”

“All we did was read. Mum says she doesn’t know what you did with the book, and—”

“I did nothing with it. I left it on the table while I went after your mother, and when we came back it was gone. What has she been saying I did?”

“Like I said, she doesn’t know.”

“She knows she had her colleague grope me to find out if I had it. And I’m sure it would have set off an alarm if I’d tried to take it out of the building, so she knows perfectly well I wasn’t responsible.”

“If you got groped you ought to put in a complaint.”

“I won’t be bothering. I take it the book hasn’t reappeared.”

“Mum says not.” A dry cough might have been why Roy paused before adding “She says you were annoying everyone, acting like they’d pinched the book.”

“Would you rather think I did?”

Another cough did duty as an answer before Roy said “They had to call security, she says.”

“And did she tell you I left without being escorted? The lazy bastards never showed up.”

If this was my bid to make Roy feel we were having a laddish conversation, it expired in transit. “Dad, we’re worried about you,” he said.

“And I am about you, Roy, more than you know.” This hindered my demanding “Who’s we?”

“Mum and me and Bell.”

“Bel.” Of course he couldn’t hear the difference, but I saw it as though it had appeared on the computer screen like writing on a wall. “Why should she be worried?” I said as unemphatically as I could.

“Because she’s part of the family now. Mum says she is.”

I choked down my initial response and said “I mean what might be worrying her.”

“Your behaviour, dad.” Less as if he were addressing someone half his age Roy said “She’s fond of you. She often says she feels like she’s known you for years.”

I nearly let the truth out, but what would have been the point? Roy would never have considered it without the evidence of Lumen Scientiae’s journal, if even then. “What exactly about my behaviour, I wonder,” I said.

“Christ, dad, don’t you really know?”

“I’m interested what she would say.” With equal restraint I said “Is she there?”

“She’s coming from her house.”

I felt shamefully devious for asking “Have you been there yet?”

“Haven’t tried.”

More sharply than was helpful I said “Why not?”