“A friendly neighbour,” he explained. He didn’t mention the man who was found hanging in his room across the other side of the building, or the woman who stood in her underwear in the corridor complaining about “the radiation.”

Milton opened the door. Inside was simple and ascetic but it was all he could afford. The owner was happy enough to take cash which saved him from the necessity of opening a bank account, something he would have been very reluctant to do.

Milton’s apartment was tiny: an eight-by-twelve room that was just big enough for a double bed with a chair next to it and a small table next to that. There wasn’t much else. The bathroom and kitchen were shared with the other rooms on the floor. Milton had always travelled light, and so storing clothes wasn’t an issue; he had two of everything and, when one set was dirty, he took it down to the laundromat around the corner and washed it. He had no interest in a television and his only entertainment was the radio and his books: several volumes of Dickens, Greene, Orwell, Joyce and Conan Doyle.

“What do you think?” he said, a slightly bashful expression on his usually composed face.

“It’s…minimalist.”

“That’s one way of describing it.”

“You don’t have much — stuff — do you?”

“I’ve never been much of a one for things,” he explained.

She cast a glance around again. “No pictures.”

“I’m not married. No family.”

“Parents?”

“They died when I was a boy.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was years ago.”

“Siblings?”

“No. Just me.”

He had a small pair of charged speakers on the windowsill; he walked across and plugged these into his phone, opening the radio application and selecting the local talk radio channel. The presenter was discussing the Republican primary; the challengers had just debated each other for the first time. The candidates were trying to differentiate themselves from their rivals. J.J. Robinson, the governor of California, was in the lead by all accounts. They were saying that the primary was his to lose. He killed the radio app and scrolled through to his music player. He selected ‘Rated R’, by the Queens of the Stone Age, and picked out the slow, drawled funk of ‘Leg of Lamb.’

“Good choice,” she said.

“I thought so.”

The room was on the third floor and the window offered a good view of the city. She stood and looked out as he went through the affectation of boiling the kettle for a pot of tea. It was a distraction; they both knew that neither would drink a drop. He took the pot to the table and sat down on the edge of the bed; she sat on the chair next to him. She turned, maybe to say something, maybe not, and he leant across to press his lips gently to hers. He paused, almost wincing with the potential embarrassment that he had misjudged the situation even though he knew that he had not, and then she moved towards him and kissed harder. He closed his eyes and lost himself for a moment. He was only dimly aware of the physical sensations: her breath on his cheek, her arms snaked around his shoulders as her mouth held his, her fingers playing against the back of his neck. She pulled away and looked into his face. Her fingers reached up and traced their way along the scar that began with his cheek and ended below his nose. She kissed it tenderly.

“How’d you do that?”

“Bar fight.”

“Someone had a knife?”

He had no wish to discuss the events of that night — he had been drunk, and it had ended badly for the other guy — and so he reached for her again, his hand cupping around her head and drawing her closer. Her perfume was pungent, redolent of fresh fruit, and he breathed it in deeply. He pulled off her sweater and eased her back onto the bed with him. They kissed hungrily. He cupped her neck again and pulled her face to his, while her hands found their way inside his shirt and around, massaging his muscular shoulders. They explored their bodies hungrily and Milton soon felt dizzy with desire. Her lips were soft and full; her legs wrapped around his waist and squeezed him tight; her underwear was expensively insubstantial, her breasts rising up and down as she gulped for air. He kissed her sweet-smelling neck and throat as she whispered out a moan of pleasure. He brushed aside the hair that framed her face. They kissed again.

His cellphone buzzed.

She broke away and locked onto his eyes with her own. Her eyes smiled.

“Don’t worry. I’m not answering.”

The phone went silent.

He kissed her.

Ten second later it rang again.

“Someone wants to speak to you.”

“Sorry.”

“Who is it? Another woman?”

He laughed. “Hardly.”

“Go on — the sooner you answer, the sooner they’ll shut up. You’re all mine tonight.”

Milton took the call.

“Mr. Smith?”

The boy’s voice was wired with anxiety. “Trip — is everything all right?”

“Did you see the police today?”

“Yes,” he said.

“They say you’re a suspect?”

“Not in as many words, but that’s the gist of it. I’m one of the last people to see her before she disappeared. It stands to reason.”

“They had me in, too. Three hours straight.”

“And?”

“I don’t know, I think maybe they think I’m a suspect, too.”

“Don’t worry about it. They’re doing what they think they have to do. Standard procedure. Most murders are committed by — well, you know.”

“People who knew the victim? Yeah, I know.”

Milton disentangled himself from Eva and stood. “You haven’t done anything. They’ll figure that out. This is all routine. Ticking boxes. The good thing is that they’re taking it seriously.”

“Yeah, man — like, finally.”

Milton took out his cigarettes and shook one out of the box. He looked over at Eva. She was looking at him with a quizzical expression on her face. He held up the box and she nodded. He tossed it across the room to her, pressed the cigarette between his lips and lit it. He threw her the lighter.

“There was another reason for calling.”

“Go on.”

“I had a call ten minutes ago. There’s this guy, Aaron, he says he was the driver who usually drove Madison to her jobs. He was the guy who didn’t show the night she went missing so she called you. He heard about what’s happened on the TV.”

“How did he get your number?”

“Called the landline. Madison must’ve given it to him.”

“You need to tell him to go to the police. They’ll definitely want to talk to him.”

“He won’t, Mr. Smith. He’s frightened.”

“Of what?”

“He knows the agency she was working for. He says they’re not exactly on the level. If he rats them out they’ll come after him.”

“You need to tell the police, Trip.”

“I would, Mr. Smith, but this guy, he says he’ll only speak to me. He says he’ll tell me everything.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning. I said I’d meet him at Dottie’s. Nine.”

Milton knew it: Dottie’s was a San Francisco institution and, conveniently enough, it was right at the top of Sixth Street, just a couple of minutes from the El Capitan. Milton yanked up the sash window and tossed the cigarette outside. “I’ll be there,” he said.

The relief in Trip’s thanks was unmistakeable.

“Don’t worry. Try and sleep. We’ll deal with this tomorrow.”

Milton ended the call.

“What was that?”

Milton hadn’t told her anything about Madison but he explained it all now: the night she disappeared, Trip and the days that he had helped her to look for her, the dead bodies that had turned up on the headland, the interview with the police.

“Did you have a lawyer there?” she said. There was indignation in her voice.

“I didn’t think I needed one.”

“They spoke to you without?”

“I haven’t done anything.”

“Are you an idiot?” she said angrily. “You don’t speak to the police investigating a murder without a lawyer, John.”

“Really,” he said, smiling at her. “It was fine. I know what I’m doing.”