We began just after eleven.

The hearth in the study had been swept clean. I laid the fire myself — dry kindling, split logs, a twist of paper beneath the grate. The air in the house held a kind of hush, as if it understood what was about to happen.

Swift stood beside me as I opened the cabinet for the last time.

The folders were laid out in order. The maps. The letters. The ledger. The fragments of a silence I had spent twelve years preserving.

We worked methodically. I passed each item to him. He read the label, glanced at the contents, then fed it to the flames. The fire took them eagerly — curling the edges, blackening the ink, reducing the past to ash.

We said little.

When the last of the cabinet was gone, I turned to him. “There are nine items missing,” I said. “You know which ones.”

He nodded. “They’re safe,” he said. “Very safe. I’ve kept them in a place no one would think to look.”

“I’ll show you,” he said. “Let’s go now.”

I suggested we eat first, then make our way back to West Ham. We shared a quiet lunch in the kitchen — cold ham, bread, pickled onions, and a pot of tea. The windows were open to the garden, and the breeze carried the scent of trimmed ivy and damp earth.

We spoke of small things. The train schedules. The weather. The way the light fell across the study floor in the afternoon. It was the first time in twelve years I’d had company. At last, I could have a friend to share my solitude with.

When the plates were cleared and the tea drained, we packed lightly and stepped out into the afternoon sun.