Laura shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together, as if she was afraid to speak out loud. And he understood, because he’d felt this himself: Sometimes what we wish for actually comes true. And sometimes that’s the very worst thing that can happen.

She buried her face in her hands. ‘I don’t know what I meant and what I didn’t. It’s all mixed up. I don’t even recognize myself anymore.’

Life could take on any number of shapes while you were busy fighting our own demons. But if you were changing at the same rate as the person beside you, nothing else really mattered. You became each other’s constant.

‘I do,’ Daniel said.

It was possible, he decided, that even in today’s day and age - even thousands of miles away from the Yup’ik villages - people could still turn into animals, and vice versa. Just because you chose to leave a place did not mean you could escape taking it with you. A man and a woman who lived together long enough might swap traits, until they found parts of themselves in each other. Jettison and personality and you might find it taking up residence in the heart of the person you loved most.

Laura’s face lifted her face to his. ‘What do you think is going to happen?’

He did not know the answer to that. He wasn’t even certain he knew the right questions. But he would get Trixie, and they would go home. He’d find the best lawyer he could. And sooner or later, when Laura came back to them, they’d reinvent themselves. They might not be able to start over, but they could certainly start again.

Just then, a raven flew past the police station, soaring in the courtyard, imitating the sound of running water. Daniel watched carefully, the way he had learned to a lifetime ago. A raven could be many things - creator, trickster - depending on what form it felt like taking. But when it looped in a half circle and turned upside down, it could mean only one thing: It was dumping luck off its back - anyone’s for the taking, if you happened to see where it landed.

And I just say, ‘Huh, probably a fan’s left it there. We’ll need to get it checked out before I can bring it in.’ Like I have teams of security on hand to taste my food or something.

Anyway, he seems happy enough, and off he trots, and when the car’s gone I go to fetch the Jack Daniel’s, take a seat in the sofa opposite the body and have a drink. The next thing, the cleaner’s coming in. I never got the chance to try out his TV.

I think you know the rest

I think so, yes. Thank you.

Which pretty much concludes our business, doesn’t it?

It does, I suppose. Just one thing, Chris. What you’ve told me, about Brian Forsyth.

Which goes no further.

No, absolutely not. But… are you telling me you didn’t actually kill Felix? That you’re in here for something you didn’t do?

The gun went off, is what I’m saying. Any one of us could have pulled the trigger - Felix might have even done it himself. I just want someone to know that I’m not a killer. I never wanted to kill anyone. It’s just that when someone died, I saw a way out, and all told, it’s turned out for the best. Out there I was Chris, in here I’m Felix. Do you see?

I see, yes. And one last thing. Why choose me?

Because I can trust you, and as my biographer you should know the whole story, even if you can’t use it all. That way you’ll get closer to the truth about me. You know something? Not many people get the chance to read about themselves, in interviews and books. The old Christ would never have done. So I just want this book to be as good as possible. After all, there’ll be another celebrity killer along in a minute, stealing all my limelight. It’s a cut-throat business. I’ve got to make the most of it while I can.

Ah, look, Jack wants his picture. Are you OK to stick around for the photo-shoot?

‘It just… came out. And when it did - even when I realized that it could be the thing that saved me - I felt awful. But then I thought maybe you’d forgive me,’ he says. ‘I’d spent almost thirty years being someone I wasn’t, for you. So maybe you wouldn’t mind spending a week being someone you weren’t, for me.’

I do not tell my father about the memories I’ve had of Victor; memories that were never heard in the courtroom; memories that would validate his intuition from so long ago. I don’t think about what I know, and what I’ve painted over in my mind. There isn’t one truth, there are dozens. The challenge is getting everyone to agree on one version.

So I ask the only question, really, that’s left. ‘Then why did you take me?’

My father looks at me. ‘Because,’ he says simply, ‘you asked.’

I am sitting in the front of the car, with my toes up on the dashboard. I close my eyes so the ribbon road in front of us vanishes, and I pretend it would be this easy to disappear. Please Daddy, I say. Don’t take me home yet.

When I open my eyes, it has started to rain. Fingers drum on the roof, and I roll up the windows of the car. What if it turns out that a life isn’t defined by who you belong to our where you came from, by what you wished for or whom you’ve lost, but instead by the moments you spend getting from each of these places to the next.

I glance at my father and ask him the question he asked me exactly a lifetime ago. ‘Where would you go, if you could go anywhere?’

His smile lights me. I drive east, toward Sophie, toward home. I follow a procession of telephone poles that stand with their arms outstretched, marching toward the horizon line. They keep going, you know. Even when you can’t see where they’re headed.

I held the baby awkward as I finally closed the door on that wretched little room. No compunction caused me to look back with longing. No sorrow had me sigh on the loss of the gas-ring, the cracked sink, or the peeling plaster. At the door to Mrs Bligh’s home I stopped. I tapped gently three times. There was no reply. I tapped again, this time calling her name. Still no one came. But with only a flimsy piece of wood between us I could feel her on the other side. The distress in a halting breath. A timorous hand resting unsure on the doorknob. She was there - I knew. ‘Goodbye, Queenie,’ I called, but still she did not come.

Gilbert nearly knocked me from my feet as he rushed towards me. His shirt outside his trousers and buttoned up badly, panting like I dog. ‘I have the trunk in the van,’ he said. ‘Come, hurry, nah.’ He took the baby from me. I adjusted my hat in case it sagged in the damp air and left me looking comical. A curtain at the window moved - just a little but enough for me to know it was not the breeze. But I paid it no mind as I pulled my back up and straightened my coat against the cold.

Becky talked to Brona. Their conversation was terse.

‘They found her.’

‘When?’

‘About half an hour ago.’

‘Are they sure?’

‘Conor says yes, but that the dental records will be used.’

‘Do you feel it is Baby?’

‘Yes… yes, I do.’

Silence.

‘You okay?’

‘Yes. You?’

‘Yes.’

Silence.

‘Do you want to come over here?’

‘Thank you, no. Conor is coming here for something to eat. He said don’t answer the door or the phone. The media may get hold of this today.’

‘Okay.’

‘You alone?’

‘No, Rupert and the kids are here.’

‘Will you phone Uncle James? I’ll phone John - I know he’ll come over from London.’

‘Good. Talk tomorrow.’

‘Talk tomorrow.’

I’m finished with this. Or, rather, it’s finished with me. Fundamentally, my mind has always balked at any kind of ending. How many stories have I torn up since I was aboy simply because they had what that old Chekhov-baiting noise Somerset Maugham calls a Beginning, a Middle, and an End? Thirty-five? Fifty? One of the thousand reasons I quit going to the theater when I was about twenty was that I resented like hell filing out of that theater just because some playwright was forever slamming down his silly curtain. (What ever became of that stalwart bore Fortinbras? Who eventually fixed his wagon?) Nonetheless, I’m done here. There are one or two more fragmentary physical-type remarks I’d like to make, but I feel too strongly that my time is up. Also, it’s twenty to seven, and I have a nine-o’clock class. There’s just enough time for a half-hour nap, a shave, and maybe a cool, refreshing blood bath. I have an impulse - more of an old urban reflex than an impulse, thank God - to say something mildly caustic about the twenty-four young ladies, just back from big weekends at Cambridge or Hanover or New Haven, who will be waiting for me in Room 307, but I can’t finish writing a description of Seymour - even a bad description, even one where my ego, my perpetual lust to share top billing with him, is all over the place - without being conscious of the good, the real. This is too grand to be said (so I’m just the man to say it), but I can’t be my brother’s brother for nothing, and I know - not always, but I know - there is no single thing I do that is more important than going into that awful Room 307. Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next. Is he never wrong?

Just go to bed, now. Quickly. Quickly and slowly.

I know all about those conditions, only this time they’re outside of me. And anyway, fighting back is what I’ve discovered I do best.

After all this time, I know exactly where I belong.

Here. With Edmond.

And that’s how I live now.

My last guest had evidently let himself out of the apartment. Only his empty glass, and his cigar end in the pewter ashtray, indicated that he had ever existed. I still rather thing his cigar end should have been forwarded on to Seymour, the usual run of wedding gifts being what it is. Just the cigar, in a small, nice box. Possibly with a blank sheet of paper enclosed, by way of explanation.