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would make sure most of the money is secreted in places where the IRS and HMRC can’t get hold of it.
    ‘Sarah we could do our time and come out loaded.’
    ‘And what about Scarlett, Nicky? What will she be doing while we do our ten thousand hours? It’ll be a big deal for her. Especially since she’s only about ten thousand hours old.’
    There’s an easy answer to this.
    ‘She could stay with your mum. She did all right with you. And she loves Scarlett. Anyway, they might not even send you to jail. In fact I’m sure they won’t.’ And I look at her carefully again. To see if she gets it. And yes, I can see her working out how that might go. Hitherto blameless mother of a small child – a child with special challenges no less – clearly led astray by a feckless chancer of a husband. Misplaced loyalty. The judge’s summing up practically writes itself, doesn’t it?
    I press home. ‘It’s Scarlett I’m thinking of really. That’s what the money will be for. It’ll be for her. To give her a chance. Think of the shit she’s been through.’
    ‘It’s completely bonkers,’ she says. But she’s lost. I know it and Sarah knows it – though, because she’s nice, loyal, kind-hearted – because I love her – I’m not going to crow or rub it in. Instead I point out, still gentle, that the real crime would be not to have the courage to act on our convictions. Not to open the door when opportunity is not only knocking on it but trying to break it down. Who dares wins. The only thing to fear is fear itself – all that. She’s properly smiling now. OK, OK, enough already that smile says.
    ‘Come here, Pog,’ she says, and wraps herself around me, folds me into that biscuity warmth. ‘You’re right. It’s all going to be fine.’
     
    And so, by the time the San Francisco morning is pulling on her hipster threads, putting on her vintage, floaty, cobwebby dress of dust and sunshine – the city’s slutty summer wardrobe – we have a battle plan. We’re thinking together as a couple, as a proper team and – as a team – we’re cooking up breakfast. And Taverner’s off and KOIT is on. Classic hits on FM.
    I know. Sick isn’t it? There’s the body of my oldest friend in the bog and we’re putting together the fullest of full Englishes to a soundtrack of Jefferson Starship. Russell has all the necessary in that giant double-sized fridge-freezer. Bacon, eggs, mushrooms, toms, ‘English-style’ sausages. Even baked beans. Even ketchup. These are things he must have had some assistant scouring all the delis of the Mission or Castro for. He even has black pudding. Black pudding. It makes us laugh.
    I know, I know, but grief. Shock. Like I say, it does weird things to the appetite.
    And so does love.
    So does seeing Sarah dance around the kitchen, hearing her sing along to the radio. Because she hasn’t had much to sing about in the last few years. There’s not been much call for dancing.

Four
    POLLY
    Daniel is showing Polly how to make a kite. He asked her yesterday what her favourite animal was and she’d said an octopus – she can’t think why because she’s all about the horses, anyone who knows her knows that – and now, here on the heavy table in the library, is a smiling octopus face on a large circle of some special green plastic with eight legs dangling down beneath it. To be honest, it looks more like a psychotic jellyfish than an octopus. It’s cartoonish, but not in a way a child would like. Polly thinks an actual child would be scared of it. But then this is not a kite for a child.
    Now Daniel cuts the wood to the right lengths with a Stanley knife. Daniel’s hands usually shake quite a lot but today they are firm and steady. He’s quick with the knife and even the splodges of liver spots on the backs of his hands seem to have faded so that they could almost be freckles. So quick with that knife, his old hands a blur. It’s like watching a top chef chop spring onions on TV. Quite