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“Well?”

“House is empty,” Roth says.

“Empty?”

“Furniture’s gone. Curtains are gone. Power’s off at the box, meter’s been read. Truck’s not there. Mail’s been stopped.” He says it calmly. “Neighbor two doors up says a van came Monday morning.”

Vera goes still.

“Monday,” she says.

“Monday.”

She looks toward the window for a moment. The yard keeps moving behind her.

“He ran,” she says. “Good. A man who runs has stopped being a lever and started being a cost. I’m not going to spend money finding a contractor with a broken hand in a country this size.” She puts the glasses back on. “Close the brother. He’s off the file. Leonard, don’t go looking for him.”

“All right.”

“Marek. Your attention stays on the goaltender. All of it.”

“Understood.”

That’s the meeting. It takes four minutes.

At the door, Roth stands aside to let me out first, which he doesn’t usually do, and as I go past him, he looks at me.

That’s all he does. His expression doesn’t change. He simply looks at me a second too long.

I was in that office ten days ago telling Vera Roth’s methods were the problem. Roth was told to go to Alder Street on Thursday. A van came to Alder Street on Monday morning.

He’s done the arithmetic. It’s not difficult and he’s not a stupid man; he’s simply never in his life had a reason to be interested in anybody. Reporting his suspicions about me isn’t what he’s paid for.

He lets the door go, walks to the elevator ahead of me, and never looks back.

I let myself into the apartment at nine.

Kieran is on the couch with a laptop open on the arm, a stick of tape in his hands that he’s winding and unwinding. The television is on with the sound off. He looks up.

“Fin’s been moved,” I say.

The tape stops.

“He’s north of the city, forty minutes off the county road. Two bedrooms, furnished, six months paid. He’s kept both the spring jobs and he was at the school district walk-through on Wednesday, so he’s lost nothing. He’ll call you tonight or tomorrow. He was fine when I left him.”

“Moved from what?”

“There was a visit scheduled for tonight. It’s not going to happen now, and it won’t be rescheduled, because as of four o’clock this afternoon there’s no longer a file on him.”

He sits up. The laptop slides, and he catches it without looking at it.

“You said Roth wouldn’t go near him.”

“I did say that.”

“So was that true when you said it or is it true now?”

“It’s true now.”