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understand your being worried.”
    As she removed them she noticed that the width of each had been slightly altered, thin cuts where a dull metal had been added.
    â€œWere they too small for her?” she asked.
    â€œOh, that,” he said, taking the rings from her and returning them to the box. “That’s nothing.”
    She placed a hand on his forearm. “I’m glad you showed them to me.”
    â€œYes,” he said, rising quickly from the settee. “Yes, I just thought you might like to see them.”
    He walked back to the bureau and put the box in the drawer. He straightened the folds in the tablecloth and laid it carefully on top.

    They fitted the last piece into the jigsaw puzzle of Westminster Abbey shortly before three and then, at her insistence, he napped in his chair in the lounge while she set about preparing tea. He slept soundly and woke refreshed, if a little stiff-necked, to a meal the likes of which he’d not had in a very long time: roast chicken, parsnips, potatoes, Brussels sprouts, boiled carrots and pork sausage. They ate not in the lounge, but at the dining-room table. They finished with cups of coffee and ice cream from a tub she’d found at the bottom of the deep freeze, where the chicken had lain hidden for so long. They did the washing up together. And afterward he took down two tumblers from the cupboard and brought them into the lounge, along with the bottle of cognac he kept now for whenever he felt a cold coming on.
    First they watched a comedy program that he did not fully understand, but it made her laugh so he said nothing. Then it was time for the Nine O’Clock News. As the presenter began with a story on the Middle East, he wondered how it was thatthe evening had passed so quickly. He poured himself a second glass of cognac.
    â€œI sometimes think,” he said, “that the world has gone quite mad.”
    The third story was that of a pensioner, an eighty-one-year-old widow in Luton, who’d been attacked by two men who followed her home from the post office after she’d cashed her benefit cheque. They’d tied her to a chair and beat her with a blackjack until her eyes had swollen shut. Then they’d used old newspapers to set fire to her settee and left her to die. Neighbours had heard the struggle, but none called for help until they saw smoke billowing from the window of her council house. All were shocked that such a thing could happen. A photograph of the woman in hospital, bandages covering her face, was shown. Police had no leads in the case, but were confident that the perpetrators would be found.
    â€œYou’re right,” she said. “Quite mad.”
    As the main news switched over to the East Midlands broadcast he leaned back in the chair and watched her. He felt slightly light-headed from the cognac. She was sitting forward on the settee; her glass, only half-drunk, she rolled between her palms, every once in a while taking the smallest of sips, at which she wrinkled her nose. Looking at her in profile as she eyed the television, he wondered if he didn’t see something of Pippa in her. In the line of her jaw, possibly, which stood out strongly from her thin neck; or in the smallness of her ears. Pippa had had tiny ears, with only the hint of a lobe. Often he’d teased her about them by talking more loudly than was necessary.
    When she turned to him he was smiling.
    â€œIs there something funny?” she asked, returning his grin.
    â€œNo, no,” he said, shaking his head. “I was just thinking.”
    â€œWhat about?”
    â€œNothing in particular, really,” he said. “Least ways nothing of interest.” He held out the bottle. “Would you like a top-up?”
    â€œNo, thank you. I’m fine.”
    She set her glass on the table. “In fact,” she said, getting to her feet. “I think I might turn in if it’s all the same to you. It’s been a