It hadn’t quite turned out as they’d described. Instead, the clerk had rung upstairs and told him to ‘hang fire’ until they sent somebody down. Before too long, a ping had sounded from the lifts. A lady in a long white shirt and horn-rimmed spectacles had bounded up to greet him. ‘Mr Savage?’ she’d said, and he hadn’t bothered to correct her. ‘Alice Kirsch. I’m sorry that you had to travel all this way for nothing. We did send another telegram, but I can see it didn’t reach you.’ She’d wiped her palm upon her skirt before they’d shaken hands. ‘Mr Wright is in Long Island with a client. I’m afraid it couldn’t wait. Last-minute call.’

He’d answered tamely, ‘Oh, I see.’

‘Problem is, he might be coming back tomorrow or next week – we aren’t too clear on his plans yet. How long are you in town?’

‘Only for the next few days.’ His ship back to Southampton left on Friday afternoon. He had a room at a hotel in the East Village and enough cash in his pocket to last the week, if he rode the subway everywhere or walked. The truth was, he’d imagined coasting round the city until then, secure in his performance at the interview, taking in the sights.

Alice had suggested, ‘Check in here again with me this evening. Call and ask to be patched through. Suite 223. You got that? Two two three. I’ll take your number at the place you’re staying, just in case. We’ll keep in touch until you leave.’

He’d waited hours, busying himself in Central Park and eating pizza by the lake. A tranquillizing darkness had set in. Small, square lights had started gleaming in the hulking shapes of buildings far away. At seven, he’d called Alice from the payphone in a grimy restaurant on Broadway. ‘No luck. Sorry about this,’ she’d said. And so, the next day, he’d tried three times more, and three more the day after. ‘I don’t know what to tell you, but it’s not unusual for Mr Wright to be unreachable. Particularly when he’s staying at Falaise. You see, there’s always more expense on projects than you think, and fewer opportunities to beg for what you need. And it’s the Guggenheims. I’m sure you understand.’

Despite the fact that she was such a regular purveyor of disappointing news, he’d enjoyed his chats with Alice Kirsch. Not once had she talked to him as though he was a pest or given him the feeling he was fortunate to share a line with her. He only wished that he could say New York had charmed him the same way, but all the curiosities the place had offered him on Monday had grown bothersome by Wednesday. He’d never felt so overlooked and overfed. He’d traipsed round the museums and found them enervating, bloated by too many visitors. His feet were sore. It didn’t help that he’d been lugging the film canister around with him, a lumpen weight in his portfolio, because he didn’t want to let it out of his sight. It was a 300-foot reel, the size of a dessert plate, and it put a fair strain on his wrist just carting it about, block after block.