The next few days are hard on everybody. The girls do not simply ignore him - he could have coped with that. Instead they are icily and formally polite, their faces frozen masks of indifference whenever they speak to him - which is as rarely as possible. They call him "McDonald", not a flicker of emotion showing on their impassive oriental faces. Their flat eyes do not rest on him but flick on and off again as if he was an item of furniture. Anger he could have understood; or hurt; or spite; or contempt. But this indifference is tearing him apart.
What makes it worse is that he understands completely why they are behaving like this; it is their way of coping with what they see as a final and utterly treacherous abandonment. They have lost their security, their father, their home, their world and now, while they are at their lowest and most in need of support, the person they have come to love and trust has also rejected them. He aches for the hurt he knows they are feeling. He desperately wants to reach out, to hold them in his arms and tell them that he loves them; loves them more than words can say and that he will always be there for them. But he knows he cannot. They would not, could not, understand why he had to turn down their offer. He moves around the house like a ghost, his face a mask of pain. Klugman, to his credit, keeps his own counsel.
Mac's acquaintance, Mike Turner, appears. At once all is a-bustle and for this interruption Mac is grateful for he can absorb himself with Kent's interrogation and momentarily shut out the girls' pain and his own. In fits and starts, and interspersed with bouts of elaborate self-justification and pathetic self-flagellation, his story emerges. It is not a pretty tale and Turner is grim-faced when he finally has enough to make arrangements to have Kent taken away for further questioning.
Turner has no sooner left than Mrs Kent arrives like a small tornado. She is a small Thai woman of seemingly infinite energy. Despite the fact that she has obviously been through a tough time, he can see where Aranya and Sunita get their looks from. The girls greet her with tears and glad cries and hugs and drag her off to their room.
When she emerges several hours later, her face is grim. She demands to see her husband. Mac and Jack have, on Turner's advice, agreed that this would not be a good idea. Mrs Kent turns out to be a very determined and vociferous lady, despite a limited command of English, and it requires all of Jack's considerable powers of persuasion to dissuade her. Under other circumstances, Mac would have been amused to watch the interplay; Jack listening apparently sympathetically to Mrs Kent's harangue then, logically, calmly and kindly explaining exactly why he could not do what she wanted.
Finally admitting defeat, Mrs Kent turns on Mac. If he thought she had been tough with Jack, it was nothing compared with the tirade of scorn and contempt she pours on him. Upon him she heaps the blame for the whole sorry situation, accusing him of engineering her husband's downfall, kidnapping her daughters, molesting them and, ultimately, endangering their lives. He listens stoically to her invective like a rock battered by the ocean's winter storms. Eventually she runs out of steam and demands to know what he has to say for himself.
Looking her dead in the eye and keeping his voice flat he replies, "Mrs Kent, you are entitled to believe whatever you wish, whether or not there is any truth in it," turns on his heel and stalks off leaving the woman red-faced and open-mouthed behind him.
Jack finds him in the billiard room several hours later where he has been attempting to blank his mind with the futile exercise of potting snooker balls.
"What a woman," Jack says, mopping his brow.
He pours himself a stiff Scotch and offers Mac one, which is declined. Mac continues to pot balls with an almost savage intensity.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Mac pauses and straightens then shakes his head. "Okay. So what are your plans?"
Mac shrugs. "Get rid of Kent. Go home."
Jack regards him sympathetically. "Didn't turn out quite as expected, did it?"
Mac shrugs again. "It rarely does."
"She has a damned cheek accusing you of being responsible for that toerag of a husband."
"She's upset." Mac takes a vicious swipe at the cue ball which shoots across the green baize, climbs the cushion and clatters onto the floor.
Jack throws up his hands in a gesture of defeat. "Okay, have it your way."
He turns to leave and Mac is suddenly smitten with conscience. Jack has done nothing to deserve his venom. He is an innocent bystander, after all, and has gone out of his way to help. Honesty makes Mac admit to himself that, without Jack's help, things might have turned out a great deal worse.
"Jack, I'm sorry." He makes a poor attempt at a smile. "I owe you a lot. I'm more grateful than I can say. Maybe some day..."
Jack nods. He doesn't know exactly what happened between Mac and the girls but he does know that Mac cares for them deeply. He is also astute enough to realise what it has cost Mac to say even these few words. He makes a half gesture as if to pat Mac on the shoulder.
As soon as he decently can, Mac leaves, waving off Jack's genuinely warm invitation to stay. Much as he likes his benefactor and, under other circumstances, would have been only too happy to remain and vegetate in this opulent splendour for a few days, he knows he is no fit company. Jack insists on driving him personally to the airport.
As he steps through the door, he is brought up short. There, on the seats by the window, exactly as they were that first day, sit Aranya and Sunita, their luggage piled up beside them. He sees their proud profiles caught in the light from the lounge windows, their long smooth necks, their flawless skin, their sultry mouths. His heart hammers in his chest as he contemplates them and he feels like a teenager on his first date as he takes a half-step towards them. The taller one turns to look across the concourse and the spell is broken. Of course Aranya and Sunita are not there: they are in France with their mother. Their belongings, like his, were destroyed in the raid. He shakes his head to clear it. Occupying the seats are a pair of Japanese tourists.
Jack's voice calling his name brings him slowly back to reality. "Mac. What's the matter? You look like you'd seen a ghost."
Mac blinks, bringing his focus on the older man. "Something like that," he says. Seeing the doubt in Jack's eyes he adds, "I'm fine. Let's go."
At the security check Jack clasps his hands warmly. No words are spoken. None are needed. In Jack's eyes, Mac sees genuine warmth and is strangely touched. He is not accustomed to friendship and particularly not with someone so far removed from him in age, wealth, occupation and social standing. He wishes he could say some meaningful words to express his feelings but knows anything he says will sound trite and shallow. In the end he simply nods and strides off without looking back.
The city matches his mood. Flat grey clouds seem to hang over the castle and hills; a drab grey blanket that is reflected in the streets, the grey stone of the buildings and even the faces of the people as they hurry about their important and anonymous business. The breeze, though light, carries the chill threat of rain. His flat seems drab and dreary, the cold grey light flattening the colours turning the corners of the rooms into monochrome. Only his cat seems indifferent to his mood and the weather. She trots to him with her tail held high, simultaneously meowing indignantly at being deserted and purring with pleasure at his return. He scoops her up and sits in his only comfortable chair where she immediately curls up in his lap and falls asleep. Her master was home and all was right with the world.
He sits, hardly moving, as the grey light of the day slowly fades through the dusk of the long northern evening.