‘Please come with me, sir,’ said Cranmer, taking Dave firmly by the arm. ‘You two as well.’

‘You can’t arrest me,’ said Dave.

‘Yes, sir, I can,’ said Cranmer. ‘And I’m going to hand you over to a police officer.’

Greg said to Jacky: ‘Do you want to get dressed?’

She shook her head quickly and decisively. Greg realized it was part of the plan that she would appear in her robe.

He took Jacky’s arm and they followed Cranmer and Dave along the corridor and into the elevator. A cop was waiting in the lobby. Both he and the hotel detective must be in on the plot, Greg surmised.

Cranmer said: ‘I heard a scream from her room, found the old guy in there. She says he tried to rape her. The kid is a witness.’

Dave looked bewildered, as if he thought this might be a bad dream. Greg found himself feeling sorry for Dave. He had been cruelly trapped. Lev was more pitiless than Greg had imagined. Half of him admired his father; the other half wondered if such ruthlessness was really necessary.

The cop snapped handcuffs on Dave and said: ‘All right, let’s go.’

‘Go where?’ Dave said.

‘Downtown,’ said the cop.

Greg said: ‘Do we all have to go?’

‘Yeah.’

Cranmer spoke to Greg in a low voice. ‘Don’t worry, son,’ he said. ‘You did a great job. We’ll go to the precinct house and make our statements, and after that you can fuck her from here to Christmastime.’

The cop led Dave to the door, and the others followed.

As they stepped outside, a photographer popped a flashgun.

(vii)

Woody Dewar got a copy of Freud’s Studies in Hysteria mailed to him by a bookseller in New York. On the night of the Yacht Club Ball – the climactic social event of the summer season in Buffalo – he wrapped it neatly in brown paper and tied a red ribbon around it. ‘Chocolates for a lucky girl?’ said his mother, passing him in the hall. She had only one eye but she saw everything.

‘A book,’ he said. ‘For Joanne Rouzrokh.’

‘She won’t be at the ball.’

‘I know.’

Mama stopped and gave him a searching look. After a moment she said: ‘You’re serious about her.’

‘I guess. But she thinks I’m too young.’

‘Her pride is probably involved. Her friends would ask why she can’t find a guy her own age to go out with. Girls are cruel like that.’

‘I’m planning to persist until she grows more mature.’

Mama smiled. ‘I bet you make her laugh.’

‘I do. It’s the best card I hold.’

‘Well, heck, I waited long enough for your father.’

‘Did you?’

‘I loved him from the first time I met him. I pined for years. I had to watch him fall for that shallow cow Olga Vyalov, who wasn’t worthy of him but had two working eyes. Thank God she got knocked up by her chauffeur.’ Mama’s language could be a little coarse, especially when Grandmama was not around. She had picked up bad habits during the years she spent working on newspapers. ‘Then he went off to war. I had to follow him to France before I could nail his foot to the goddamn floor.’