This time, however, Ahmed Sinai was spending his money cautiously; this time he remained hidden in the background, and his name appeared on no documents; this time, he had learned the lessons of the freeze and was determined to draw as little attention to himself as possible; so that when Dr Narlikar betrayed him by dying, leaving behind him no record of my father’s involvement in the tetrapod scheme, Ahmed Sinai (who was prone, as we have seen, to react badly in the face of disaster) was swallowed up by the mouth of a long, snaking decline from which he would not emerge until, at the very end of his days, he at last fell in love with his wife.