“Quite an assumption after all you’ve tried to do.”

“All the same, it feels as if I am.”

“You’ve opened up your mind a little, have you? Then you should discover for yourself whether you can trust it. It’s hardly up to me to provide reassurance.”

“If I’m right, I’d just like to know why you’ve finished with me.”

“Patrick, you sound as if you feel jilted.” With the same faint amusement Bella said “Because you failed.”

As though this weren’t enough to confirm my worst fears I heard Roy say “Is that my dad?”

“I’m afraid so,” Bella said.

“Let me talk to him.” In a moment his voice grew close and harsh. “What do you want now?”

“Just finding out the situation, which I can’t pretend I understand.”

“That’s because you don’t understand us. That’s why you didn’t manage to split us up.”

Less like a plea than an expression of dismay I said “So make me understand.”

“Bell showed me what she was wearing when you saw her back. She’s got it on now.”

“I did more than see, Roy, and she let me.”

“Why are you keeping up this shit? It won’t work on me.” A cough delayed more of his protest. “Bell says you never touched her,” he said, “and she was never in your room.”

In growing desperation I said “Then where did we meet?”

“On the promenade, Bell says.”

“And why would we do that?”

“Because she wanted to find out why you’re so against us, and she thought it might be easier for you to say if I wasn’t there.”

I was searching for a way to regain his trust when I had a thought that seemed to offer some hope. “Your mother’s been persuaded too, has she?”

Roy’s cough let him pause before admitting “She doesn’t know.”

“Doesn’t know you’re back together, you mean.” Since he let this pass unanswered I said “How do you think she’ll react when she does?”

“I expect her situation would be very much like yours, Patrick,” Bella said.

I hoped Roy could sense the threat this hardly bothered to conceal, although wouldn’t the insight endanger him? Instead he retorted “Tell her if you want. She won’t break us up any more than you did.”

His voice trailed away into a stutter of dry coughs, and I was sure his energy had been depleted by the spell Bella must be exerting over him. “And where are you now?” I tried asking.

“Where Bell needs to be.”

I’d feared so. “How much more of that is there?”

“The last one’s tomorrow.”

I wanted to believe this would release him, but I was afraid how much it might drain him. Before I could ask their present location he said “Got to go.”