I’d already showered and breakfasted. As I climbed into my car a train in the station declared it was a train. Driving through the tunnel and then through Liverpool onto the motorway, I felt more purposeful than last time, though uneasy too. At the edge of Manchester I left the motorway for streets where shops were opening with a celebratory rattle of shutters. Pensioners determined to make the most of their day were at large in the suburb, speeding on motorised scooters or leaning on wheeled frames. Quite a few pedestrians looked no less preserved than the buildings, which dated from before at least one world war if not both. Julia lived in the midst of a grid of increasingly new and narrow streets, in a tall terraced house topped with the window of an extra room beneath the roof. I’d just parked opposite the compact regimented garden, where each variety of flowers was named on its own miniature notice, when Julia stepped out of the house, closing the stout ambitiously panelled door all but an inch. “What’s this about, Patrick?” she said.

“The youngsters want me to give them a lift.”

“You’re saying they asked you.”

“I believe I can say that.”

“You didn’t suggest it.”

“I’m saying I think it’s appreciated.”

Julia glanced at the house and took a pace forward, lowering her voice. “What do you actually think you’re doing?”

“It won’t do any harm to keep an eye on what’s happening with them.”

Another pace took her voice lower. “What do you imagine is?”

“I won’t know until I see.” Her weary stare provoked me to retort “Has anything been going on at your house?”

“Nothing whatsoever. What on earth would have been?”

“The usual, I should think. Bella told me you gave her a bed.”

“I have, yes. Her parents aren’t around just now, so that’s two problems solved.”

“Do we know where they’ve got to, these parents of hers?”

“Away for the summer is my impression. She doesn’t like to talk about them much.”

Somewhere I heard the sharp flat pats of a game of tennis, which our conversation resembled rather too much. “So what problems do you say you’ve solved?” I said.

“Not leaving her and Roy alone at her house and not having to sort her stay out with her parents.”

“What are the sleeping arrangements, then?”

“Patrick.” In case this was insufficiently reproving Julia said “They’re under age.”

“I just wondered where you’ve put her.”

“She’s at the top and Roy has his room. She likes the high view. Satisfied now?”

I glanced at the roof, where I thought I’d glimpsed someone gazing down at me through the vertical window. “I just wonder if we ought to be a little more concerned.”

“About what, Patrick?”