“You’re going to erupt,” I said. “We’d better stand clear.”

“No, I’m fine,” Josh said in a strangled tone, and we all laughed. It was the first time I’d ever seen him with any expression more cheerful than an awkward self-conscious grimace, and I couldn’t remember when I’d last laughed helplessly. There hadn’t been anything to laugh about.

“Now you,” said Josh.

With exaggerated elegance I took a large spoonful and ate it. They stood looking as if I were a firework taking a long time to go off.

“How do you do it?” Morris asked finally.

“I love hot food,” I said. “And I can deal with it like a lady.”

“We’re impressed,” said Josh, awestruck.

I then hastily took a massive gulp of cold beer.

“You all right?” Josh asked.

“Just thirsty,” I said casually.

Surprisingly quickly, there was just the cooled wreckage of a meal. While I cleared the table, which meant putting the foil containers one inside the other, the boys wandered over to my notorious computer. They crouched over it and I heard occasional gasps and guffaws. I came back with another glass of beer, sipping it. I felt pleasantly dizzy.

“I know it’s comical.”

“No, it’s great,” Josh said, clicking away expertly with the mouse. “You’ve got all these primeval versions of programs, all these one-point-ones and one-point-twos. It’s like a software dinosaur park. Hang on-what’s this?”

It turned out that my computer had somewhere embedded in it a solitaire card game that I hadn’t even found. Did I know the rules? they shouted at me. No, I didn’t. So with much shouting and fighting over the controls, they began playing.

“This is like an evening with two thirteen-year-olds,” I said.

“So?” said Josh.

He seemed to be loosening up. He was certainly more relaxed with me. There was no longer any of that agonized, embarrassed respectfulness. They shouted for more beer and I brought them two cans, cold from the fridge.

“I feel like I’ve become the Princess Leia in this scenario,” I said.

Josh turned from the screen, looking at me thoughtfully.

“More like Chewbacca, I think,” he said.

“Who?”

“Forget it.”

Maybe too much fuzziness wasn’t entirely a good thing. I went and made a pot of coffee. I poured myself a mug. Very black, very hot.

“There’s coffee,” I shouted.

Josh was absolutely engrossed. For the moment he didn’t know I existed. But Morris wandered over and poured himself a coffee.

“Is there any milk?”

“I’ll get it.”

“You stay there. I’ll find it.”

Morris went off to the kitchen and I looked across at Josh, who was staring into the screen with fierce attention. His arms looked surprisingly thin and white. He was still a little boy. While being very big. Morris came back.

“Nice flat,” he said. “Very quiet.”

“Are you flat hunting?” I asked. “In which case you should take a look at the one I saw yesterday. Not very quiet, though.”

“How did that go?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure what I was doing there. It was probably stupid, but it felt important. I talked to Zoe’s friend, Louise. She was nice. It brought me closer to Zoe.”

Morris took a sip of coffee.

“Can you really care about somebody you’ve never met?”

“Well, you know, I feel slightly connected to Zoe and Jenny.”

“Did you see the news report about the landslip in Honduras last week?”

“No.”

“They recovered more than two hundred bodies. They don’t even know how many people are missing.”

“That’s awful.”

“It was a very small news item on the foreign pages of my newspaper. If it had happened in France it would have been a big story. If it had happened to people who speak English it would have been on the front page.”

“Sorry,” I said. “You’ll excuse me if I’m a bit self-obsessed at the moment. It’s the constant feeling of fear and nausea all the time. It does that to you.”

Morris leaned forward and put his coffee down delicately, on a magazine, as if the value of my crappy table could be reduced any further.

“Do you really feel that?” he said sympathetically.

“Yes,” I said. “I try to forget about it or cover it up, but it’s always there. You know when you’re a bit ill and everything you eat has a slightly curious undertaste? That’s what it’s like.”

“If you want to talk about it, that’s all right. You can tell me what you’re feeling. Anything.”

“That’s nice of you, but there’s nothing complicated about it. I just want it to be over.”

Morris looked around. Josh was still engrossed in the game.

“What are your plans?” he said.

“I don’t know. I had some stupid idea that I could try and look for clues myself, but I think it was a waste of time. The police have combed through everything.”

“What were you looking for?”

“I’ve no idea, isn’t that the most ridiculous thing of all? Looking for a needle in a haystack is one thing, but what about looking through a haystack without even knowing what you’re looking for? Maybe I’m looking for a bit of hay. I had a brief look at some of the police files.”

“They let you look at their files?” said Morris sharply.

I laughed.

“Well, sort of.”

“What were they like? Were there autopsy reports?”

“Mostly bureaucratic stuff. There were some horrible pictures. What was done to Jenny. You don’t want to know. I still see it when I close my eyes.”

“I can imagine,” Morris said. “Did you learn anything?”

“Not really. Oh, lots of information, but nothing that would help me. It was horrible, but it was pointless, really. I suppose I was hoping I would recognize something, some connection, that would link us: Zoe, Jenny, and Nadia, the three strange stepsisters.”

“You found me,” he said with a smile.

“Yes. Don’t worry, Morris-I’ve still got my eye on you. And there was also the estate agent, Guy, who may have been a link between Zoe and Jenny. He seemed pretty weird. But I know a little bit about probability. We all live in north London. It would be strange if there weren’t connections between us. We must have gone to the same shops, we must have passed each other in the street. But that’s not important. It’s just that I keep worrying away at it in my head. There must be something. There must be. I talked to this psychologist and she mentioned some principle that the criminal always takes something to the scene of the crime and always takes something away with him. It’s a haunting idea, isn’t it?”

Morris shrugged.

“Well,” I continued. “It haunts me. I feel I’ve got it all in my head. I’ve got the haystack inside my head and I feel there are two straws in there and if I bring them together, maybe I’ll save my life.”

“Of course you will,” Morris said. “You mustn’t give up hope.”

“I sometimes think I should. You know what the real pain is? It’s the occasional moment when I have a feeling of what it might be like to get through all this and live a normal life and grow old.” I had to stop and pull myself together before tears started running down my cheeks. I was aware of a presence next to me. It was Josh. I poured him some coffee. “This evening has been a bit like that,” I said. “Something unexpected and casual.”

We were silent for a moment. Josh looked grown-up again, sitting on the sofa with two adults. We all sipped our coffee and caught each other’s glances and smiles.

“So what you’ve been doing,” Morris said, “is trying to make a connection between you and the other two women, Zoe and… er… Josh’s mum.”

“Of course.”

“I’ve been thinking about it-and would you mind if I said something that was really dumb but it was a thought?”

“Go ahead,” I said. “It’ll make a change from me prattling away.”

“It’s just that there is an obvious connection between the three of you.”

“What?”

“It’s a trick question, really, but who are the people you have in common?”