He retreated into the strip of shade thrown by the high walls that divided the garden from the road, imagining an iron gate set within the bricks, its lock and hinges choked with ivy. I’ve wondered enough at what I have done, he thought, but what have they done; what keeps them here, pleasure or punishment … ‘Still no birds then?’ Alex had come quietly on bare feet and stood smiling at him, his hands deep in his pockets, nothing like the frightened boy crouching by the door he’d seen that morning.