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and grief took hold of him like a rabid dog. He sobbed and lay a cheek upon the icy floor. It took his breath, literally, and for a moment he tried to still body and blood so that he might better hear. It was to him as though, above, at the precise moment when his ear had touched the wood, he had heard a piano burst into song. He did not dare move for a whole minute and then another, sat out ten, with his breath screwed into him, biting his lip against the cold. Then he leapt up, slid a sleeve across his tearstainedface, and ran as fast as he could up the stairs to the apartment directly above.

    He burst in, not bothering to knock. She must have forgotten to lock the door behind her, it gave way to his childish fist and he stormed in, kicking up clouds of dust. He bolted down the corridor, she heard him crash into her suitcase, and on towards the light. The drumbeat of his feet upon her carpets – she stopped her playing in surprise, craned her neck to see, and no sooner had she done so than he, too, stopped with great suddenness, his legs still stretched for running, and stood stock still at the very centre of her living room. She picked up the candelabra from where it stood next to the piano chair and rose to inspect him.
    He was an ugly boy, physically stunted, twelve, perhaps thirteen years old. In figure short and angular; a prune face above, with crooked teeth and eyes that didn’t sit quite even, like he had broken a bone there some time ago and it had never been set. He opened his mouth to speak but not a word came out.
    â€˜What?’ she asked, and noted how cold it sounded. ‘What do you want?’
    He rubbed his eyes, the dust must have got to them, his voice rasped in his throat.
    â€˜What?’ she asked again, disentangling her coat from the chair, and prepared herself to use the candelabra as a weapon if need be. The boy did not answer, so she raised her left and used it to point into the black of the corridor.
    â€˜Then go,’ she said, one eye on her jewelled wristwatch. ‘Go, or you’ll get into trouble.’
    The boy would not leave. Instead, he leapt at her, or rather at her hand. Initially she thought he was after the watch, the little thief, but it was the hand itself that he grabbed and applied his weight to.
    â€˜Please,’ he mouthed, just as she had resolved to hit him with the candelabra. His eyes were on the floor. ‘Please.’
    He smelled of street waste and burnt meat.
    â€˜What do you want?’ she tried again, the boy still clinging to her hand. His prune face quivered, he was ugly like a monkey, and spat when he talked, unmodulated, too loud for the room and the hour.
    â€˜Please,’ he said. ‘My friend, he is ill. You – you have a piano. You are rich. Please. Save him. He is dying.’
    It sounded made up, a trap perhaps, and she longed to get back to her playing. It had been so long since she had enjoyed the pleasures of a piano.
    â€˜I can’t help you,’ she told him, and then, ‘Let me go, you little beast,’ only his grimy fingers were clamped upon her jacket now, pulling at it and threatening to pop its buttons. A boot-tip to his crotch got him away from her, gave her the time to sink a fist into his hair and drag him to the door. She was too fast for his flailing leg and slammed the door in his face. Then she stood, panting, and waited for him to go away.
    He didn’t.
    Instead he drummed against the wood with feet and fists, threatening to wake up the whole house. ‘Please,’ he screamed, his voice breaking, and through the closed door she pictured spit flying from his crooked mouth. The fool. The Colonel would be back soon. She did not want to think what he might do to the boy. In truth she could not predict it.
    â€˜Boy,’ she hissed through the wood. ‘Be quiet. For your own sake, be quiet.’
    The drumming stopped. She heard him shift.
    â€˜Please.’ It sounded from