“No. She came around looking for Albert, but he was off somewhere. You know . . . one thing led to another.”

“Are you sure you didn’t give her a roofie?”

“No way. She was a bit drunk.”

“She was very young, Paul. Underage, in fact.”

“But she could seem so mature. I could see something in her. I don’t know. I thought if I could get through to her, you know, I could change her. I could save her.”

“Save her from what?”

“From being just like all those stupid empty-headed young sluts she spent her time with. She was really talented. An artist. We talked about her going to art college. She could study design, and with my practical skills we could make beautiful stuff, maybe get rich. She just had a bit of growing up to do first, that’s all.”

It was certainly what plenty of women tried to do with men, Annie thought, change them, improve them, and more often than not to no avail. “It was a nice dream,” Annie said. “So what went wrong?”

“You’re right about what Albert said. He’d known for a week or so that Mimsy was seeing the Paki, though I don’t think he knew the full story of what was going on. You’ve probably concluded for yourselves that Albert isn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier. It didn’t take me long to figure it out from his drunken ramblings that night. Sure, he was the one who fell asleep. ‘Passed out’ would be a better word. And yes, he had a bit of help from me.”

“Go on, Paul,” said Annie. “You were jealous?”

“Not just that. You can’t psychoanalyze my feelings that simply. It was far more complicated than mere jealousy.”

“Tell us, then.”

“You wouldn’t understand. The impurity. The defilement.”

“Mimosa was hardly a paragon of virtue, Paul.”

“I know that. But I . . . I mean, with the right person . . . She didn’t have to be a write-off. She wasn’t stupid, she just liked a good time. She was young. She would have grown out of it, all that silliness. I could have helped shape her, make something of her. I could have changed her.”

“Proper My Fair Lady business again,” said Gerry. “Teach her to talk properly and all that?”

Warner scowled at her. “You can talk like that if you want,” he said. “Cheapen it. It’s just what I’d expect. I told you you couldn’t understand how complex my feelings are.”

“Well, let’s not worry ourselves too much about your complex feelings, then,” said Annie, “and you can just tell us what happened. The facts. Pretend we don’t care why.”