"I'm afraid John isn't coming back."
"Not coming back? Of course he's coming back."
"No. I think he's—got off."
"You mean he's—"
"Yes. Bolted."
"What on earth makes you think that?"
"He's taken all sorts of things—pyjamas, razors, all his pockethandkerchiefs… I had to look through his drawers to find those letters he told me to answer."
Sutton had gone through into the slip of white tiled lavatory beyond. She followed him.
"My God," he said, "yes. He's taken his toothbrush and his sleeping draught…. You know he tried to get leave yesterday and they wouldn't give it him?"
"No. That makes it simply awful."