“You don’t need to bother yourself with any of those old accounts.”

He left ten minutes later, after checking the latch on the cellar stairs.

I locked the kitchen door behind him and slept no more than two hours the whole night.

At eight the next morning, a hard frost lay over the grass along the gravel alley behind the house.

I put on my brown work coat and went out to the detached wooden garage behind the kitchen.

The side door smelled of wet oak leaves, mower fuel and cold stone.