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kept very still in her chair, her eyes closed, keeping her breathing firm and even. His footsteps were softer than usual, as if he were trying to keep silent. A silent little mouse creeping across the lino, scritch scritchity scritch.
    A shadow flickered through the red of her closed eyes. She willed her lids to remain steady and not betray her with vibrations. Her ears strained for the sound of his movement. The shadow stilled; he was very close now.
    A feeling of dark warmth descended upon her from above.
    ‘Bloody Japs Bloody Japs!’ the parrot squawked.
    Her heart gave an extra thud, her eyes shot open and she sat bolt upright in her chair. ‘You, boy—shock!’
    He leapt back as if he’d been stung, clutching a green velvet cushion to his chest. ‘Christ, Moth, I thought you were asleep. I was just fixing your cushion, wanted to make you more comfortable.’
    ‘Doesn’t need fixing. Fine.’ In hospital she’d overheard the nurses joke about giving a troublesome patient the ‘Tontine treatment’. It didn’t seem funny now.
    ‘Well you shouldn’t leave it on the floor, it’ll get dirty,’ he said, frisbeeing the cushion onto the bed. He turned to the parrot. ‘And as for you, it’s about bloody time you fell off the perch.’ He tossed a blanket over the cage and made it rock. The parrot let out a final curse and fell silent.
    Too vain for glasses, Ralph peered closely at her face. ‘God, Moth, you’re as white as a sheet, are you alright?’
    ‘Of course we’re alright, just a shock, you shouldn’t call at this time of night, tired, worried, must go to bed...’
    ‘It’s not late; it’s not even six o’clock. I’m here because the police called me. They said you were upset, said the Pavels have gone missing—does that mean the cops finally got round to checking up on them? I rang them several times you know, like you asked, but I think they thought I was some kind of crank. So what’s happened—no sign of the Pavels at all?’
    She shook her head; it was so much easier.
    ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
    She didn’t want a cup of tea; she wanted to go to bed.
    ‘So ... what exactly did you tell the police?’ he asked as he bustled about the kitchenette. People often remarked upon her son’s resemblance to Sir Richard Branson—tousled grey hair and neatly trimmed goatee beard—and it was an image he seemed determined to cultivate, even adopting a similar dress style to the multi-billionaire. There weren’t many engagements grand enough to get him out of those bright figure-hugging shirts and designer jeans and into a suit. He probably wouldn’t even wear a suit to his mother’s funeral, she thought without sentiment. His ersatz Branson image had won and lost him three wives quicker than the real Branson could polish one of his jets.
    He told everyone he was a businessman, but to Lilly Hardegan, her son Ralph would never be anything more than a trumped-up greengrocer.
    He put her tea on the table next to her sewing and settled himself on the footstool at her feet. He often complained about the stool, said she should have another chair for visitors, said he hated sitting at her feet like a child. It kept him in his place, Lilly liked to think.
    ‘Listen, Moth,’ he said as he took one of her hands.
    She used to have such pretty hands, she reflected without self-pity. These days they looked more like something found under the lino—too much sun maybe?
    ‘It’s really important that you tell me exactly what you said to the police,’ Ralph went on. ‘It would be awful if they were given the wrong impression of the Pavels, or of me for that matter, wouldn’t it?’
    ‘Your friends.’
    ‘Well, not exactly, Jon Pavel is a business associate really. It’s not necessary to mention my connection with him at all. You see, if you mention me...’ He paused, his eyes becoming sharp slits, nothing like Branson’s at all. ‘You’ll be dropping yourself in it too.’
    I was stupid.