She knocked but gained no reply. She rang the bell. She tried to peer in the front windows, but she had to resign herself to the admission that other than affording her exercise, the ride across town to this borderland between St. Pancras and Islington had been wasted.

“He isn’t home, our Rob,” a female voice declared behind her. “No surprise in that, though, poor lad.”

Ulrike turned from the door. A woman was watching her from the pavement. She was shaped like a barrel, with a similarly shaped, wheezing English bulldog on a lead. Ulrike went back down the steps to join her.

“D’you happen to know where he is?” She introduced herself as Rob’s employer.

“You that sandwich woman?” The woman said she was, “Sylvia Puccini. Missus. No relation by the way, if you’re musical. Live three doors down. Known our Rob since he was a toddler.”

“I’m Robbie’s other employer,” Ulrike said. “At Colossus.”

“Didn’t know he had another employer,” Mrs. Puccini said, eyeing her carefully. “Where’d you say?”

“Colossus. We’re an outreach programme for youth at risk. Robbie’s not strictly an employee, I suppose. He volunteers in the afternoons. After he does his sandwich round. But we consider him one of us all the same.”

“Never mentioned it to me.”

“You’re close to him?”

“Why d’you ask?”

Mrs. Puccini sounded suspicious, and Ulrike could sense that they might easily head into Mary Alice Atkins-Ward territory if she pursued this route. She smiled and said, “No particular reason. I thought you might be since you’ve known him so long. Like a second mum or something.”

“Hmm. Yes. Poor Charlene. God rest her dear tormented soul. Alzheimer’s, but Rob would have told you that, I expect. She went off early winter last year, poor thing. Didn’t know her own son from shoe leather at the end. Didn’t know anyone, if it comes down to it. And then his dad. He hasn’t had an easy time of it for the last few years, our Rob.”

Ulrike frowned. “His dad?”

“Dropped like a stone. Last September, this was. Setting off to work like always and drops like a hundredweight. Falls straight down the Gwynne Place Steps right over there.” She indicated the southwest end of the square. “Dead before he ever hit the ground.”

“Dead?” Ulrike asked. “I didn’t know Rob’s dad was also…He’s dead? You’re sure?”

In the light of a streetlamp, Mrs. Puccini cast her a look that indicated how bizarre she thought the question was. “If he’s not, luv, we all stood round and watched someone else get sent off to be cremated. And that’s not very likely, is it?”

No, Ulrike had to agree, it certainly wasn’t. She said, “I suppose it’s just that…You see, Rob’s never mentioned his dad passing away.” On the very much contrary, she added to herself.

“Well, he wouldn’t, I expect. I can’t say Rob’d ever be the sort to go shopping for pity, no matter how bad he felt about his dad’s passing. Vic was one who didn’t ever tolerate whingers, and you know what they say: as the sapling’s bent. But make no mistake about it, my dear. That boy felt deeply when he found himself alone.”

“There are no other relations?”

“Oh, there’s a sister somewhere, a lot older than Rob, but she took off years ago and didn’t show up to either funeral. Married, kids, Australia or who knows where. Far as I know, she’s not been in touch since she was eighteen.” Mrs. Puccini gazed at Ulrike more sharply then, as if evaluating her. When she next spoke, it was apparent why. “On the other hand, dear, between you, me, and Trixie here”-she indicated the dog with a shake of the lead, which the animal apparently took as a sign to resume her walk because she lumbered to her feet from where she’d been squatting gustily at Mrs. Puccini’s ankles-“he wasn’t a very nice bloke, that Victor.”

“Rob’s father.”

“As ever was. A real shocker when he went like that, true, but not a lot of hearts were breaking at the thought of it in this neighbourhood, if you must know.”

Ulrike heard this, but she was still attempting to process the first bit of information: that Robbie Kilfoyle’s dad was in fact dead. She was comparing this to what Rob had told her recently…Sky Television, wasn’t it? Something called Sail Away? All she said to Mrs. Puccini was, “I do wish he’d told me. It helps to talk.”

“Oh, I expect he’s talking.” Unaccountably, Mrs. Puccini nodded once again towards the Gwynne Place Steps. “There’s always a friendly ear when you’re paying for it.”

“Paying?” Friendly ears and paying suggested one of two things: prostitution, which seemed about as much Rob’s style as armed robbery, or psychotherapy, which seemed equally unlikely.

Mrs. Puccini appeared to know what she was thinking because she gave a hoot of laughter before she explained. “The hotel,” she said. “At the base of the steps. He goes to the bar there most nights. I expect that’s where he is right now.”

This proved to be the case when Ulrike bade Mrs. Puccini and Trixie good night and headed across the square and down the steps. She found that they led to an unassuming and unmistakably postwar tower block, heavily given over to chocolate-coloured bricks and minimal exterior decoration. Inside, however, it boasted a lobby done up in faux art deco, its walls hung with paintings depicting well-heeled men and women lounging and partying between the two world wars. At one end of this lobby, a door marked the entrance to the Othello Bar. It seemed strange to Ulrike that Robbie-or anyone from the neighbourhood-would choose a hotel rather than a nearby pub in which to do his drinking, but she decided that the Othello Bar had one quality to recommend it, at least on this night: There was virtually no one present. If Robbie wished to bend the sympathetic ear of the barman, that individual was entirely available. There were seats at the bar to boot, another feature making the Othello perhaps more welcoming than the corner pub.

Robbie Kilfoyle was at one of these seats. Two of the tables were occupied by businessmen working at laptops with their lagers before them; one other table was taken up by three women whose enormous bums, white trainers, and choice of drink at this time of night-white wine-suggested they were American tourists. Otherwise the bar was empty. Thirties music played from speakers in the ceiling.

Ulrike slid onto the stool next to Robbie. He glanced her way once, then again when the sight of her registered with him. His eyes widened.

“Hi,” she said. “One of your neighbours said you might be here.”

He said, “Ulrike!,” and looked round her as if to see if she was accompanied by someone. He was wearing a snug black jersey, she noted, which emphasised his physique in a way that his usual neatly ironed white shirt had never done. Lessons from Griff? she wondered. He had quite a nice body.

The barman heard Rob exclaim and came to take her order. She said she’d have a brandy, and when he fetched it for her, she told Rob that Mrs. Puccini had suggested she look for him here. “She said you’d been coming here regularly since your dad died,” Ulrike added.

Robbie looked away and then back at her. He didn’t attempt to obfuscate, and Ulrike had to admire him for that. He said, “I didn’t like to tell you about it. That he’d died. I couldn’t think of a way to tell you. It seemed like it would’ve been…” He thought about it, it appeared, as he turned his pint of lager between his hands. “It would have been like asking for special treatment. Like hoping someone’d feel sorry for me and give me something as a result.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Ulrike asked. “I hope nothing anyone’s done at Colossus would make you feel you had no friends to confide in.”

“No, no,” he said. “I don’t think that. I s’pose I just wasn’t ready to talk about it.”

“Are you now?” This was, she saw, an opportunity to forge the loyalty bond with Robbie. While she had bigger concerns than the death of a man that had taken place months ago-a man she had never even met-she wanted Robbie to know that he had a friend at Colossus and that friend was sitting right next to him in the Othello Bar.