Nothing! I could smell his presence there – that sulphurous, infernal whiff – but the shop was quite abandoned. He will never set foot there again.’ Noah stared fixedly from his study window to the street below as Benjamin poured tea from a silver pot. ‘I have never been this close,’ he continued. ‘It’s as if he is taunting me, as if he knows I am searching for him and gives me glimpses just to play with me. It would be like him.’ The Negro caught Noah’s attention with a guttural cough and proceeded to make a series of brief but complicated gestures with his hands, describing shapes in the air with his paler palms and punctuating the words with fine finger movement. He raised his shoulders interrogatively in conclusion. ‘Yes, yes – you are right. He has no idea I am even in the country. At least, he has no reason to know. It is only my fancy and my anger that make it seem otherwise. You know I am not like you, Ben. I cannot forget.
