Your grandmother would have been extremely annoyed with me.”

Nine words and an errand, and I went to the county registrar the following morning and paid twenty-five dollars for three certified copies of a death certificate, which is a thing I should have done in the first week anyway and had not, because nobody tells you.

Part Sixteen: The Doorway

I did not get out of that building cleanly.

At about four o’clock, while I was still in Arthur’s office putting the towel back round the book, the glass door behind me opened and the room smelled of wet wool and cigarettes.