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‘She’s sixty-five next birthday, Eddie! She’s always been delicate, you know that, but I look after her and I alill’

They had stared at each other, then Eddie had sighed ‘I’et back I want her to come and stay with me for a while’

‘Sure, of course,’ Don had said, in quick relief, but knowing that he did not dare leave her beh

ind or let her stay with her father once they got back to the States He wouldn’t want Eddie Rae of sanity, if she wasn’t already way over it Drugs and constant supervision kept her within li into a race between her last flicker of sanity and her father’s last flicker of life Don hoped the old o first; it would be unbearable for hi child had to be shut away for ever in a , and for another Don would be safe fro his will

Steve had to attend a budget nostications of the head accountant on the perennial probleed to snatch a few raphy shop where they had blown up individual sections of Lilli’s wheel for him

‘They’re very grainy, a bit scratchy, but you can see the faces a lot clearer, Steve,’ the guy said, watching hilossy sheets ‘Is that OK? I can’t blow theo completely out of focus if I tried’

‘They’re fine,’ Steve said, shuffling theether ‘How much do I owe you?’

He paid cash and left In the cab taking him back to the network headquarters he had another look at the blown-up copies; the faces were certainly clearer, yet even more mysterious and alien now that they were three or four ti at them more closely, he wasn’t even sure why he had had theet out of the here

They were poignant and rather pathetic, these faces – the old man in some sort of crumpled uniform, his hair oiled down, parted in the ainst his shoulder – he must have lived around the turn of the century But when had they lived, this young couple on their wedding-day? The bride looking as if she was barely out of childhood, a little girl dressing up, thick dark hair piled up behind her head, looking plu dress which ht have been hera bouquet of lilies and sroom aslightly dazed, in a suit which fitted him so badly it must surely have been borrowed or hired? Were these Sophie’s parents – or her grandparents? He couldn’t guess from the clothes

The one face he was certain about was that of Sophie’s dead sister He briefly looked at it, oddly ht that this lovely child was dead Well, froe of these photos, many of these people must be dead or very old by now – yet so

They had lived out their span, these old people, but the baby had died before it had had a chance to live Steve felt his throat hly and pushed all the photos back into the envelope

Well, that hadn’t told hi He had wasted hisabout Sophie? These were her people Part of the about them was to find out more about her

Suddenly re hi hi back to London next day

‘Don’t worry, you won’t have to pay,’ she added, explaining that her trip was being paid for by the TV network ‘I’ for their team while I’m there, but I’ll still file you stories about the political angle of the Gowrie visit’

After she’d hung up she rang Theo’s flat and got Lilli