Written in Blood

The Invitation

Afterwards, talking to the police, no one could quite agree as to who had put forward Max Jennings’ name. One or two people thought it was Amy Lyddiard, who was sure it was her friend Sue Clapton. Sue disagreed, suggesting Rex St John, who said it certainly couldn’t have been him because he had never heard of the man let alone read his books. Laura Hutton admitted she might have been responsible, having recently come across an article in Harpers describing the author’s recent move to a village barely twenty miles away. Brian Clapton said whoever it was had inflicted on him the most boring evening he had ever spent in his entire life. But what Amy and Sue both agreed on was that poor Gerald’s reaction to the suggestion had been most dramatic.

No sooner were the words ‘Max Jennings’ uttered than, according to Amy who wrote block-buster fiction, he had apparently jumped, blanched, trembled, been taken aghast, stared wildly round or winced as if from some mysterious blow. And then he had dropped his coffee cup. There was immediately much fuss over the stained trousers and what with that and scraping the sugary residue off the carpet it was some ten minutes before the group reassembled. Sue made some fresh coffee using the special chocolate-truffle variety that Gerald had left ready and which Brian said he couldn’t tell from cocoa.

When she took the tray in Gerald was standing in front of the gas fire holding damp trousers away from his scalded knees and saying, ‘Terribly sorry about all this. A sudden twinge ...’ He laid his hand briefly against his white shirt front.

‘You must go and see the quack,’ said Rex.

Laura thought, it’s his heart, and felt nauseous and quickly cold. But he’s not fat. Or even overweight. The right age though. And you didn’t have to be fat. There were all sorts of other factors. Oh God. Oh God.

‘I think Rex is right—’

‘It’s just indigestion. Some jugged hare—’

‘Even so—’

‘Do you think we could get on?’ Brian made a great show of looking at his watch. He didn’t like Gerald for a variety of reasons and thought more than enough time had been spent fussing over him. ‘I’ve got marking to do before I go to bed. We’re not all members of the leisured class.’

They returned to their discussion, which was on the difficulties of finding a guest speaker. Just before the accident Amy had suggested a woman who lived in nearby Martyr d’Evercy and wrote about the humorous antics of her Pekinese dogs, of which she had a very large number.

‘I know who you mean,’ said Sue. ‘She produces the books herself and takes them round to all the local shops.’

‘Vanity publishing is strictly verboten,’ said Brian. ‘We want real writers or none at all.’

‘It’s only four times a year,’ said Honoria Lyddiard, picking up the last pimento-and-cream-cheese vol-au-vent. There were two flaky frills resembling the wings of infant angels sticking out. She placed it on her large tongue like a pill and swallowed it whole. And that makes eight, observed Amy quietly to herself.

‘I would have thought,’ continued Honoria, ‘that between us we could manage that.’

Between us was stretching it. Although quick to deride most of the names mentioned, Honoria rarely suggested anyone herself. The people who did come she nearly always deemed unworthy and was often extremely rude about them, not always waiting till after their departure.

‘We could ask Frederick Forsyth,’ said Rex, who was writing a thriller about a hit man, code name Hyena, and his attempt to assassinate Saddam Hussein.

‘No point,’ said Brian. ‘These people always pretend they don’t have time.’

This was demonstrably true. Among the people who had not had time to address the Midsomer Worthy Writers Circle over the past few years were Jeffrey Archer, Jilly Cooper, Maeve Binchy and Sue Townsend although she had sent a very nice letter and a signed paperback.

Only once had they had any sort of success. A poet, garlanded with prizes and praise and visiting the Blackbird bookshop in Causton for a signing session, had agreed to come and talk to them on the same evening. It had been a disaster. He had only stayed an hour, which was spent drinking, reading out his reviews and telling them all about the break-up with his boyfriend. Then he burst into tears and had to be driven all the way back to London by Laura, the men in the party having declined the honour.

And so the group perforce had had to be content with far lesser luminaries - a journalist from the Causton Echo, an assistant producer (tea boy really) from the town’s commercial radio station and a local man who published from time to time in Practical Woodworking and consequently thought himself too grand to attend on a regular basis.

‘What about that idea you had at breakfast, dear?’ Sue Clapton smiled timidly across at her husband. She was as neat and smooth as he was untidy, with long stringy hair the colour of milk chocolate tucked behind her ears and large round glasses with multi-coloured frames. She wore a long wrapover skirt the colour of clover printed with tiny daisies and her feet, in unlovely leather clogs, were placed just so. ‘The one—’

‘Yes, yes.’ Brian flushed with annoyance. He had planned to introduce his suggestion coolly; absently, almost throw it away when the usual bickering had reached its nadir. ‘I do have a contact who might - repeat might - just come and talk to us.’

‘What does he write?’

‘He doesn’t.’ Brian gave Gerald an amused smile. ‘He’s a devisor.’ He chuckled and his ironic glance spread to include them all. Plainly no one knew what a devisor was. Typical. ‘Mike Leigh?’

‘Now that would be a coup,’ said Laura, crossing elegant silk-clad honey-coloured legs. The friction produced a whispery hiss that had an effect on all but the man it was meant for.

Sue wished she had legs like that. Brian wished Sue had legs like that. Honoria thought the movement extremely vulgar. Rex boldly fantasised a wisp of lace and a suspender. And Amy smiled at Laura in simple friendliness - paying for it later over the Horlicks.

‘I didn’t say it was Mike Leigh.’ The colour on Brian’s cheeks deepened. ‘I was merely making a comparison. Last week the school had a visit from Nuts N Bolts - theatre in education? - who gave this really brilliant account of a day in the life of a comprehensive—’

‘Bit coals to Newcastle, what?’ said Rex.

‘Oh dear, oh dear.’ Brian shook his head and laughed. ‘You just don’t get it, do you? Bouncing their own experience back to these kids but in a new dynamic form gives their lives a thrilling authenticity.’

‘Pardon?’

‘They recognize the grammar of the narrative as being identical with their own.’

‘I see.’

‘Anyway,’ continued Brian, ‘I caught up with Zeb, the guy who runs it, while they were loading the van and asked if he’d come and give a talk. We’d have to pay—’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Honoria. ‘We never pay.’

‘Just expenses. Petrol and—’

‘Honoria’s right.’ Rex struggled to inject a note of regret into his voice. ‘Once we start doing that sort of thing ...’ He tailed off, wondering, as he had often done, if such parsimony wasn’t perhaps counterproductive. Maybe if they’d offered John le Carré his expenses? Honoria was speaking again. Loudly.

‘Of course if you’d like to fund a visit from this person yourself?’

Honoria regarded Brian coldly. He really was an absolute mess of a man. Straggly hair, straggly beard, straggly clothes and, in her opinion, an extremely straggly political viewpoint.

Sue watched apprehensively as her husband retreated into a sulk, then started to play with her hair. Beginning at the scalp she lifted a narrow strand and ran her nails down it, pulling the hair taut before letting it go and starting on the next piece. She did this for the rest of the evening. It was only half an hour but all present felt by then that they had, at the very least, entered the next millennium.

And so, eventually, through many digressions and much argument, the conversation described a full circle and Max Jennings’ name came up again.

‘I really feel we might have a chance with him,’ said Amy, ‘living nearby. Also he’s not a hundred-percent famous.’

‘What on earth’s that supposed to mean?’ said Honoria.

‘I think,’ said Sue, ‘Amy means just quite well known.’

‘I’ve never heard of him,’ said Brian, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. Whilst having no time for the rich and famous he also had no time for the not really all that rich and only very slightly famous. Truth to tell, if you were not at the very bottom of society’s dung heap and being ground further into the primeval sludge by every passing jackboot, Brian would almost certainly be giving you the complete kiss off.

‘I heard an interview with him on the radio,’ said Amy. ‘He sounded really nice.’ Too late she remembered it should have been ‘wireless’ and waited for Honoria to click her tongue. ‘I’m sure it’s worth a try.’

‘I can’t stand these poncy nom de plumes. No doubt for Max we are meant to read Maximilian. Probably born Bert Bloggs.’

‘I read his first novel, Far Away Hills. He was brought up in absolute poverty in the Outer Hebrides. His father was a terribly cruel man and drove his mother to her death. She killed herself when he was still quite young.’

‘Really.’ Brian sounded more cheerful. ‘We could give it a try, I suppose. Not as if we have anyone else in mind.’

‘There’s Alan Bennett.’

Brian sniffed. He was rather off Alan Bennett. At the beginning Brian had been very much under the writer’s influence. He had hung around outside the village shop and the Old Dun Cow with a tape recorder, talking to the villagers, hoping to unravel the rich and poignant complexities of their inner lives as he understood was the great man’s way. It had been a dead loss. All they talked about was Neighbours and football and what was in the Sun. Eventually a drunk had called him a nosy piss pot and knocked him down.

Laura said, ‘I thought we were keeping him for an emergency.’

‘Let’s take a vote shall we?’ said Rex. ‘Asking Jennings?’ He put his hand up as did the others, Honoria last of all. ‘Gerald?’

Gerald had turned his still damp trousers back to the fire. He looked over his shoulder at the six raised hands then back to the artificial blue and yellow flames. However he voted it could hardly affect the outcome. Yet he could not let this terrible suggestion pass without some form of protest.

He said, ‘I think it’ll be a waste of time,’ and marvelled at the neutrality of his voice. At the even tone. The regular and unhurried spacing between the words. The words themselves so mild in contrast to the torment raging in his breast.

‘Sorry, Gerald. You’re outnumbered.’ Brian was already pulling on his knitted hat.

‘Even so,’ (he couldn’t just give up) ‘I don’t think there’s a lot of point—’

‘If you won’t write I will,’ said Brian. ‘Care of his publisher, I suppose. In fact I might ring them up—’

‘No, no. I’m secretary. I’ll do it.’ At least that way matters would stay in his own hands. ‘No problem.’ Gerald stood up, wishing only to be rid of them. He saw Laura covertly watching him and managed to stretch his lips in the semblance of a smile.

He did not sleep that night. He sat at his desk for the first hour quite motionless, drowned in recollection. His head felt as if it were being squeezed in a vice. To see the man again. Max. Max. Who had stolen his most priceless possession. To have to speak words of welcome and no doubt be forced to listen to hours of self-aggrandisement in return. Gerald knew he would not be able to bear it.

At three o’clock he started writing. He wrote and wrote and wrote again. By six he was exhausted and the waste basket was overflowing, but he had the letter. One side of one sheet of paper. He was as sure as he could be that the balance was right. It was out of the question that he should beg Max not to come. Even at the time - even at the very moment of that terrible betrayal - Gerald had not begged. Victorious Max might have been but that was one satisfaction he would forever seek in vain.

Now Gerald, gripping his pen hard in his right hand and holding the paper down firmly with his left, started to address the envelope. Necessarily he began with the name. M.a.x. J.e.n.n.i.n.g.s. The pen slipped and twirled in his sweating fingers. It was as if the very letters had the power of conjuration. He could hear the man breathing, smell the fragrance of his cigar smoke, look into the brilliant blue eyes in that bony, sunburnt face. Feel the old spell being cast.

He read the letter again. Surely no one comprehending the emotional turmoil from which such an invitation must inevitably have sprung would accept.

Gerald affixed a first-class stamp, put on his muffler and overcoat and left the house. As he set off for the post box the milkman’s float materialised out of the dark.

‘You’re up early, Mr Hadleigh.’ The man nodded at the white square in Gerald’s hand. ‘Making sure you get your pools off.’

‘That’s right.’

Gerald strode off, his spirits curiously lightened by this mundane encounter. The real world rushed in, familiar and banal. It was the night now that seemed unreal. A hot-house of unhealthy imaginings.

He quickened his pace, filling his lungs with fresh winter air. By the time he was starting back towards the cottage the bitter reflections that had so tormented him just a short while before now began to seem no more than over-heated fantasies. He was projecting his own wretched memories on to someone else. For all he knew Max had practically forgotten about him. And in any case, even if he hadn’t, Gerald could not somehow see him driving nearly thirty miles just to talk to a bunch of amateur scribblers. He was successful now. Each new epic in the Sunday Times Top Ten without fail. No, the more Gerald thought about it, the more insubstantial and unfounded his previous fears now seemed.

There were streaks of rose pink, lemon and silver on the horizon as he let himself back into the house and put on the coffee pot. And by the time the sun’s scarlet rim had appeared he had persuaded himself that writing such a careful and painstaking letter had been a waste of time and effort. Because there was no chance in the world that Max would come.

Almost a month to the day after the group meeting Laura stood by her kitchen door, knowing what she was about to do even as she entertained the delusion that she might yet change her mind. In her hand she held an empty sealed envelope. Laura did not own a dog and had more sense than to walk around an English village in the dark for no apparent reason.

On her last excursion (just under a week ago) she had met the Reverend Clewes coming out of the vicarage with Henry, his basset hound. They had all walked along together and Laura had been compelled to post her envelope before being accompanied all the way back home and seen safely inside. She had not dared to venture out again and had gone to bed fretting miserably with deprivation. But tonight Henry had gone trotting by with his master, and trotting back, a good half hour ago.

Laura buttoned her dark reefer jacket up to the neck. She wore jeans, strong leather gloves, black boots and a sombre head scarf concealing distinctive coils of hair that glittered like copper wire. She stepped out into the still, silent night, locked the door, turned the key very gently and stood for a moment listening.

There was no sound from either of the houses flanking her own. No cats being put out or let in. No chink of milk bottles or rattle of dustbin lids. Or friends being seen off the premises. She set off, hushed on rubber soles, turning left without even having to think.

She walked quickly, keeping close to tall hedges - the Englishman’s modest horticultural version of the medieval stockade. Suddenly a crumpled-silver-paper moon occupied the sky and Laura stepped into a negative. Pumice-stone houses, black trees painted with pale light. Previously lost in the anticipation of journey’s end, she was shocked into self-consciousness. Exposed, like a solitary actor on a brilliantly lit stage.

It was still several yards to the post office, which was, in fact, nothing grander than the properly fortified sitting room of Wiworry, Mr and Mrs ‘Midge’ Sandell’s bungalow. The pillar box was by the gate and as Laura drew level with it the moon became obscured by clouds again. She put the envelope into her pocket and walked on. This was the tricky bit, for if she ran into an acquaintance now she could hardly say she was on her way to post a letter. But luck was with her and she saw no one.

Plover’s Rest was the last house to face the Green proper. From then on the divided road joined up again and the property on either side consequently became less valuable. There was a gap of around thirty yards before these houses began and this area had been left wild. It was filled with a tangle of hawthorns; sloes and wild crab apples and was a godsend to Laura for, like most of the houses on the Green, Plover’s Rest had a halogen lamp which any direct approach set off immediately.

She made her way through the tangle, holding vicious briars away from her face, staring into the blackness unafraid, desire outweighing apprehension a hundredfold. Then, heart pounding, she crept out of the tiny copse, made a left turn and squeezed through a second gap, this time in a waist-high wattle fence. She was now in Gerald Hadleigh’s back garden.

Laura stood for a moment, keenly aware of her surroundings - a massive beech tree, empty ornamental urns, the barely visible outline of patio slabs sparkling with frost. Over her head the sky was crammed with stars. Avoiding the gravel, she tiptoed softly forward, preceded by puffs of her own breath immediately visible on the icy air.

There was a light on in the kitchen but, as Laura approached, it was plain that the room was empty. Boldly she stared in. There were some dirty dishes in the sink. A half bottle of claret and a glass on a tray. Changing her position slightly she could see the long shelf of boxed spices and narrow glass jars with dried shavings of fungi and ginger and some brackish curly stuff the colour of dried blood.

Gerald had mentioned once that he liked to cook Japanese food. Laura had at once said she adored it too and asked if he would give her a lesson. He had smiled and said he wouldn’t dare but next time he cooked teriyaki she was welcome to try some. She had waited, in a daze of happiness, for that invitation, which had never materialised.

Eventually, driven by longing, by a vision of the two of them sitting at a candlelit table drinking glasses of warm sake she reminded him of his promise. He assured her he had not forgotten and how would next Thursday at seven be?

Laura had danced away to steam her skin and brush her glorious hair and massage scented lotion over immaculate, slender legs. On Thursday at six forty-five she had put on her Jasper Conran maize jacket and ivory silk shirt and narrow damson crêpe skirt and hung glowing cornelians in her ears. She looked lovely. Everyone said so - the Clewses, Rex, the couple from Windy Hollow who were in computers. A first invitation, she discovered later, for all of them.

Anyone else would have learned from that. Laura, crying herself to sleep, awoke to the conviction that Gerald was simply nervous. Socially not at all gauche where romance was concerned, Laura told herself, he was simply out of practice. He wanted to entertain her in his home but, the first time, needed other people present. That had been nearly a year ago. The invitation had never been repeated.

Wretchedly unhappy, needing to protect herself, Laura struggled to create in her mind an alternative situation, charting the progress of an imaginary affair to Gerald’s disadvantage. He was a rotten lover, a boring conversationalist, faddy and finicky and set in his ways. Completely self-absorbed. After no time at all, light-hearted and free as a bird, she left him. With a huge expenditure of imaginative energy Laura could hold on to this comforting fiction, sometimes for days. But then, of course, she would see him again.

Sound and light! Bathed in panic she dodged from the window and pressed herself flat against the cottage, feeling the flints jab into her back. But it was only Brian, Gerald’s nearest neighbour, putting his permanently red-nosed Volkswagen away. The headlamp’s beams were gradually eaten up. The garage doors banged shut. She heard him walk down the side of the house and go in. A bolt was shot. No doubt Sue would, even now, be making bedtime drinks. Laura felt a fleeting pang of envy. Not, God knew, that she, or surely anyone in their right senses, would want to be married to Brian. But there was undoubtedly a brand of cosiness obtainable à deux that was simply not on the menu when you lived alone.

Oh, what am I doing here? Laura pounded her gloved fist on the wall, scraping the leather. I am a grown-up thirty-six-year-old woman. I am attractive and have even been called beautiful. I am not neurotic. I have friends and I have known love. I run a successful business and have a pretty house full of beautiful things. Children smile at me. Cats and dogs give me the time of day. Men ask me out. So why am I creeping around like a criminal at eleven o’clock on a freezing February night on the off-chance of catching a glimpse of a man who couldn’t give a damn whether I’m alive or dead?

Falling in love. She had never understood before how literally, physically true the phrase was. One minute she had been choosing oranges in the village shop, the next she had stepped back and trodden on a man’s foot. A tall man with greying curly hair and rather cool hazel eyes. What happened next (the falling) was quite extraordinary. Laura had seen a film once - Hitchcock perhaps - where someone in their dreams tumbled down and down into a black and white spiralling vortex. And that’s just what it had been like. She closed her eyes, feeling again the force of it, tugging on her heartstrings like a falcon’s jesses.

Sure that he would be married, Laura had become weak with relief on hearing that he was a widower. Such a tragedy. His wife died several years ago. Leukaemia. They hadn’t been married long. He’s never got over it. And she, confident of her femininity, her lovability, thought: I will show him how to get over it. I will make him happy again. And when I do he will forget all about her.

New to Midsomer Worthy, she attended the harvest supper in the hope of seeing him. He was not present, but she did discover that the village boasted a writers’ circle of which he was a member.

Though having no talent or interest in the subject she joined immediately, under the pretence that she was transcribing a mass of letters, papers and receipts she had bought in an auction job lot. And so, once every four weeks at the very least, she was sure of seeing him. Not just to smile and wave at across the Green but truly to be with for two and sometimes nearer three hours. She thought of these periods as quality time. Time spent doing what mattered to you most in all the world. She had come across the phrase in a magazine article about parents with only limited access to their children.

Telling him was out of the question. She was not even remotely tempted. Everything would inevitably change, perhaps - no, almost certainly - for the worst. Things were easy now between them. Or at least Gerald thought they were, which is what mattered. But how might he handle a passionate declaration of undying love that he was either unable or unwilling to return? It would place him in an intolerable position. He would be embarrassed when they met. View her perhaps with distaste. Or worse, with pity. He might even drop out of the group to avoid an awkward evening. Goodbye, quality time. Hello, end of the world.

God, it was cold. Her feet, even with thick socks inside the boots, were frozen. Laura moved on to the grass at the side of the house where she could, inaudibly, stamp up and down. I must be mad, she said to herself. I’ll be seeing him in twenty-four hours.

She had a sudden sharp perception of how she would appear to an observer. A peeping Thomasina. A voyeuse. And vowed to give up. Tomorrow.

A vehicle was approaching. The sound became louder, filling her ears. It was not Gerald’s Celica. This car had a much heavier, louder note. And when the door opened and closed it was with a louder thunk. Laura ran into the trees on the far side of the cottage. Then, dry-mouthed with apprehension, moved swiftly forwards to where she could see what was happening.

A taxi stood in the drive. A woman, her back to Laura, was paying off the driver. She wore a smart black suit and a little hat with a veil. The driver called out something of which Laura could make out only ‘safely in ...’. The woman rapped on the cottage door. As the cab drove away, the door opened and she stepped inside.

Laura let out the breath she had not even realised she was holding in a low moan. She clapped her hands over her mouth and waited, rigid with alarm, in case someone had heard. But it seemed no one had.

As she stood absorbing the shock other feelings were released. Misery, jealousy, a great bursting sadness and rage at her own gullible complacency. Because Gerald had shown no interest in her she had been vain enough to assume he had no interest in any woman. How completely she - indeed all of them - had been taken in by the pose of grieving widower.

Knowing she would be sorry, yet driven to turn the knife, Laura moved away from the shelter of the trees. As she did so a branch pulled at her scarf. The velvet curtains in the sitting room were not quite drawn. She stood in the flower border, past caring by now whether she was seen or not, and applied her eye to the chink.

She could see part of the bookshelves, the section of the sideboard supporting the wedding picture with Grace, appropriately enough, cut off. Half a vase of pink viburnum. The woman came into view. She was carrying a glass of red wine, presumably the claret. She had taken off her hat and thick fair hair tumbled in waves over her shoulders. She was beautifully made up but, thought Laura, older than I am. Much too old for him.

The woman lifted her glass, smiled and spoke. Then drank deep. Gerald’s wine. The intimacy of this very ordinary little ritual nearly drove Laura mad. She could no longer see for tears. Certainly she never saw or heard old Mr Lilley from Laburnum Villas walking by with his collie dog.

Amy could remember quite clearly the moment she became aware that servitude had entered her life. She had been living at her sister-in-law’s for several months and had tried to make herself useful from the start, being only too keenly aware of her inability to contribute financially to the household.

The moment in question had occurred on a sunny afternoon in May. Honoria had been sitting at her desk surrounded, as usual, by genealogical charts, old letters and other documents relating to the Lyddiards’ family tree and books on heraldry. The doorbell had just rung and Amy had put the pillowcase she had been mending aside, looked across at Honoria’s broad back, half got up, hesitated. Honoria did not even turn round. Just jerked an irritated finger in the direction of the sound.

Until that moment Amy had dignified her increasingly lengthy range of daily tasks under the term ‘being useful’, which she certainly was. Within a month of her arrival Amy had taken over the shopping (village store daily, Causton once a week), garden maintenance, collecting wood for the boiler, washing and ironing and helping Honoria with her research. But there were certain things that she might not do. Duties that were below the salt. Although only a relation by marriage she was still a Lyddiard, which meant no kneeling. Mrs Bundy came in once a week for that sort of thing, which was called ‘the rough’.

On the rare occasions when visitors were present Amy was not even allowed to clear away the tea things. ‘As if,’ she had grumbled during one of her secret conversations with Sue, ‘they are going to think we’ve got a black and white maid hiding in the kitchen.’

Sue had nodded sympathetically, remarking that she’d never known anyone so snobbish.

Amy disagreed. To call Honoria a snob was like calling Alexander the Great a bit on the bossy side. The worshipful veneration she entertained for her position and that of her ancestors on the map of English history beggared belief. Amy thought she was a bit mad. Since her brother’s death Honoria had spent all her time fiercely tracing this blood line, fortifying every discovery with as much primary material as she - and now Amy - could discover.

Many cardboard boxes filled with rubber-banded index cards attested to a most assiduous ferreting out of information. A vast square of white card, weighted at each corner, was permanently unfurled on a large table where it was gradually being imprinted with the family tree. When this was complete Honoria planned to have the details transferred to the finest vellum, professionally calligraphed and illumined with gold leaf, whereupon it would be framed and hung in the main hall.

Amy had long tired of it all. She had wondered more than once how Honoria came by her obsession, for it certainly did not run in the family. Ralph (or Rafe as his sister still insisted on calling him) had been the least class conscious of men. He would talk to anyone and everyone in an easygoing and friendly manner. Unlike his sister he just liked people.

Honoria despised people. Especially the lower orders. ‘Unwholesome barbarians breeding like bacteria in their squalid little hutches’ was one of her less extreme descriptions. How her aristocratic spirit looked down on them! Barely civilised rabble.

Ralph had always laughed at this nonsense and could not understand why Amy didn’t do the same, but she found Honoria’s insistence on a ‘natural aristocracy of the blood’ far from funny. To Amy it seemed dehumanising, smacking of eugenics, born leaders and chilling attempts at social engineering.

‘Are you listening to me?’

‘Yes, Honoria.’

Amy sighed as she lied but was glad of the interruption. Every recollection of her husband could so easily tip her into a spiral of unhappy nostalgia. She tore open a plastic carrier and placed it over a tray of brown-bread cartwheels containing Primula cheese and asparagus tips. Honoria was still going on about the asparagus, even though the tin had been reduced to half price because it was badly dented. Amy had defended her purchase, saying everyone would be taking something special out of respect for the celebrity speaker.

‘Anyone would think he was a reincarnation of William Shakespeare,’ Honoria had grumbled, adding, ‘if there are any left make sure you bring them back.’

Amy finished arranging her second tray. Triangular sandwiches with the crusts cut off filled with cucumber and home-made mayonnaise. She would much rather have used shop-bought. Not only did it taste nicer but the consistency was much more satisfactory. This stuff either ran out in little puddles or seeped through the bread so it looked like mustard-coloured blotting paper. But Hellmann’s was deemed too costly.

‘People seem to be going mad,’ persisted Honoria. ‘Laura spoke of buying something from that ridiculously expensive pastry shop and Susan is baking a cake, no doubt full of the disgusting hamster food they all seem to thrive on.’

‘An iced carrot cake actually.’

‘He’s coming from the far side of High Wycombe.’ Honoria, already wearing an old Barbour, now rammed a tweed pork-pie hat over her short, straight, iron-grey hair. ‘Not the North Pole.’

‘Where are you going?’ asked Amy, meaning, as she always did, how long will you be?

‘Just to Laura’s.’

If Max Jennings was coming from the North Pole, thought Amy, shivering in spite of two jumpers, a cardigan, tights, leg warmers and ankle boots, he would certainly feel at home in Gresham House.

She went into the library, where Honoria, having finished work for the day, was letting the fire go out. Amy crouched over the smouldering grey-white remains and rubbed her frozen fingers. She wondered whether to go down to the cellar and kick the boiler. This was a voracious wood-burning contraption connected to iron skirting pipes which it was supposed to feed with hot water. There were two or three dials to be twiddled as an alternative to physical violence, but neither method was wholly satisfactory. The pipes never had more than the chill taken off. The water was never more than lukewarm.

Amy decided against it. By the time she had got down there and attacked the thing she could be in her room and writing. Never a day without a line had been Olivia Manning’s dictum and Amy tried her best to live by it.

Her novel, Rompers, was safely locked away in a shagreen hat box on top of the wardrobe. She had described it to the group, not untruthfully, as a family saga, but just what type of families they were and what sort of thing they got up to remained a secret between herself and Sue. Although the sexual shenanigans were pretty decorous compared to some bestsellers and although she had, so far, been unable to bring herself to use the ‘f’ word, which seemed to look so dreadful written down, there was still enough hot stuff sizzling in the rich and glamorous stew to give Honoria serious pause for thought. A process which might well lead to the conclusion that the loosemoraled person producing such unsavoury rubbish was not worthy to reside beneath the Lyddiard roof. And then, thought Amy, where would I go? A woman of forty, completely unskilled and without a penny to her name.

This was not Ralph’s fault even though, in the eyes of the world, he had not been a success. A sailor when Amy met him, she often thought it was a mistake that he left the service. But he was worried about abandoning her for long periods and she, of course, had missed him dreadfully. He had no special gifts and talents and, while not unintelligent, never really discovered what he was cut out for. With a legacy from his parents - Honoria got the house and a small annuity - he opened a second-hand bookshop. This failed, as did other idealistic ventures - growing olives in the Evvia, picture framing in Devizes. Finally, having almost exhausted the money, they bought a tiny cottage in Andalusia with an acre of stony soil and struggled towards some sort of self-sufficiency. It was during this period that Ralph became aware of the first signs of the cancer that was to cost him his life.

Stop it! Stop it! Amy shouted the words, forcefully vanquishing her beloved husband, the tiny ill-equipped Spanish hospital, Honoria’s enraged descent and the dreadful flight home. If she was going to write herself out of her present miserable existence she would not do it by endlessly picking over the past.

She took down the hat box, removed the manuscript and re-read the last three pages to get in the mood. She was not entirely dissatisfied. The prose seemed to her quite robust and she had been careful to keep out even the slightest hint of irony. But how would it come across, Amy now asked herself, under the hard commercial eye of a tough fiction editor?

At least this time round (for Rompers was her third attempt) she had got the social class and settings right. At first, when Sue pointed out that the quickest way to make pots of money was to write within a genre which she called ‘cuddling and buying things’, Amy had quite misunderstood. Her heroine, Daphne, a dental receptionist, had been shyly approached by a divinity student while selecting a cauliflower in Tesco’s. Now, stylishly renamed, she was wheeling and dealing in Hong Kong.

Amy chewed on her Biro. When she was just thinking above writing it seemed so easy. All sorts of jolly phrases leapt to mind. Pacy, beautifully shaped, packing a punch. But when the time came to deface the dreaded blank page they never seemed to belong in what she was working on.

Likewise individual scenes. Great fun to write; difficult to fit in to the grand overall scheme. Amy had wondered about missing this step out entirely. Why should not readers buy all the bits - perhaps in a prettily decorated box - and assemble them to their own designs in their own homes? After all, people did it with furniture. It could be a new trend. And publishers were supposed to be always on the lookout for originality.

Amy looked at her watch and gasped. Half an hour since Honoria had left. All that time wasted in sad recollection instead of working towards a better future. She seized her pen.

‘Damn, damn and damn again!’ cried Araminta saltily as she picked up Burgoyne’s latest fax with trembling lips.

Honoria cycled alongside the Green in solitary and deluded splendour, pursing her mouth savagely as she spotted a single Coca-Cola tin lying meekly on its side beneath the village notice board.

Powerfully present on the parish council, Honoria had so far fought successfully against the placing of a litter bin on, or even anywhere near, the beautifully maintained verdant oval. But if this sort of loathsome despoliation was to be the result she may well have to think again.

Without doubt the article in question had been thrown down by someone from the municipal dwellings. Although these hideous breeze-block buildings were placed, quite rightly in Honoria’s opinion, on the very edge of the village proper, the social pariahs housed within seemed to think they could go wherever they liked, shouting, playing music, revving their disgusting motor bicycles. In the summer they even swarmed all over the Green to watch the cricket, bringing pushchairs and picnics and hideous tartan rugs. If Honoria had her way the dozen or so council houses would be contained behind high wire fences and patrolled by armed guards.

She turned into the driveway of Laura’s cottage and dismounted by crossing one stout leg in front of the other and jumping down. She leaned her bicycle, a large old upright with a semi-circle of yellow oilskin laced over the back wheels and a fraying wicker basket, against the garage and tapped on the front door.

Honoria was there by invitation. At her own request Laura had been looking out for a stone figure to grace the Gresham garden’s clematis walk. She had rung the previous evening to say that a catalogue had arrived for a coming sale in Worcester containing pictures of some charming statuary. Perhaps Honoria would like to come and look at them? She suggested tea time the following afternoon, which was early closing at her shop.

Honoria rapped again, but no one came. She lifted the latch, which was very old, a highly polished brass heart with a lion’s paw handle, and the door opened. All was quiet but for the tock-tocking of Laura’s tall ebony grand-father clock. Honoria peered into the two tiny rooms opening off the hall then moved, silent on thick cherry-red carpet, towards the kitchen. As she approached she heard a most strange sound - a long, juddering, in-drawn breath as if someone was being severely shaken.

Honoria hesitated, not from nervousness but from an inbred aversion to tangling with any situation not proceeding along smoothly conventional lines. She also had a distaste verging on abhorrence for minding anyone’s business but her own.

She decided to open the door just a chink to see if she could discover precisely what was going on. Unfortunately the door creaked. Loudly. Laura, who was sitting at the table, her head resting on her arms, weeping, looked up. The two women stared at each other. It was impossible for Honoria to withdraw.

Laura must have been crying, surely, Honoria thought, for some hours. She was so used to seeing the other woman’s skilfully made-up face regarding the world with cool detachment that she hardly recognised her. Eyes so swollen as to be almost invisible, scarlet puffy cheeks, damp hair hanging any-old-how. And still in her dressing gown.

Rigid with mortified disapproval, Honoria struggled towards speech, for it was plainly impossible to say ‘excuse me’ and leave. That would have looked appallingly heartless and, although Honoria was appallingly heartless, she had no wish to bandy the fact between all and sundry. Really, she thought crossly, if people choose to behave in such a loose manner they might at least have the decency to do so behind locked doors.

‘My dear,’ she said, and the endearment sat as awkwardly in her mouth as an ill-fitting tooth, ‘what on earth is the matter?’

After a long pause Laura gave the reply people nearly always do in such circumstances. ‘Nothing.’

Strongly tempted to reply ‘Well, that’s all right then’ and leave, Honoria descended two glossy stone steps and drew a wheelback chair out over the blue slate tiles. She sat down, saying, ‘Is there anything I can do?’

Of all the bloody awful rotten luck. Laura cursed herself for forgetting to put the Yale back down after signing for a registered package. Of all the bloody awful rotten people to walk in. Laura had looked up only briefly, but once had been enough. Honoria’s prurient disengagement and passionate wish to be elsewhere were unmistakable.

‘No, honestly.’ She took a tissue from a nearly empty box, scrubbed her cheeks, blew her nose and dropped the soggy ball into a waste basket. ‘I get like this sometimes.’

‘Oh.’

‘I guess everyone does.’

Honoria stared in disbelief. She had been brought up under the strict understanding that a lady never displayed her emotions. Honoria had never cried, not even when her beloved Rafe had died and she had been split asunder with the pain of it. Not then or at the funeral or at any time afterwards.

‘Shall I make you some tea?’

‘Tea?’ God, she’d be here for the duration. Making it, letting it stand, pouring it out. Milk and sugar. Bloody biscuits. Go away, you horrible old woman. Just go away.

‘That’s very kind.’

Honoria filled the kettle and got milk, still in its carton, from the fridge. The teapot, a pretty piece of Rockingham covered with blue flowers was, to her relief, sitting on the side. She hated the idea of opening cupboards. Seeming to pry. Which meant doing without a milk jug. The silver-gilt caddie held Earl Grey bags.

‘Do you have bis—’

‘No.’ Laura had stopped crying but her face remained crumpled, this time with incipient crossness. ‘I eat them all so don’t keep them in the house.’

‘I see.’ Honoria was unsurprised at this further example of undisciplined dishevelment. ‘What a charming pot,’ she added, whilst waiting for the tea to brew. ‘You have such lovely things. I suppose it’s being in trade.’

Laura blew her nose again, this time more loudly, putting the tissue in the pocket of her dressing gown. Actually when the drink came she was glad of it, for she had taken nothing since after dinner the previous evening.

What was it, she wondered, about the making and proffering of this, the English panacea? No matter how appalling the occasion - a devastating accident, incipient bankruptcy or news of bereavement - the shell-shocked survivors were offered a cup of tea. And after all, thought Laura, aren’t I newly bereaved? Deprived forever of the hope that once sprang eternal.

She sipped the fragrant, steaming liquid. The deceit of him. The deceit. Such rectitude. The lonely widower nursing his loss in pious and dignified silence. Refusing all comfort. His whole life a lie. Laura crashed her cup down into the saucer.

Honoria, sitting bolt upright and already gripping her handbag very firmly, now held it up before her in the manner of a shield. Anxious both to justify her presence and to get away she reminded Laura about the catalogue, concluding, ‘Of course it doesn’t matter now. I can come back again.’

‘Oh! Don’t do that.’ Laura sprang up with uncomplimentary speed. ‘I’m sure I know just where they are.’

She ran upstairs to her second bedroom, which doubled as an office, and started sorting through her in-tray. The catalogue wasn’t there. Or in the desk. Or in the Garden (Design) file. About to check her briefcase she remembered that she had been flipping through the thing the previous evening in the sitting room. And that was where she found it, in the magazine rack.

‘I’ve ticked the ones I thought might be suitable.’ Laura re-entered the kitchen. ‘There’s no hurry to bring it back. The sale isn’t for six weeks.’ She paused. ‘Honoria?’

Honoria jerked her head round suddenly as if she had been dreaming. She rose and took the catalogue without looking at Laura. Her lips, always of a censorious set, seemed even more rigidly clamped than usual. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes burned with a cold puritanical fire. Laura was glad when the front door closed behind her. And it wasn’t even as if anything would come of it. This wasn’t the first time such an idea had been mooted. Honoria was far too mean to spend five pounds, let alone five hundred.

It was when she was once more sitting at the table wondering whether to start crying again or make some fresh tea that she noticed the photograph. About half an hour before Honoria arrived Laura had removed it from its silver frame beside her bed and dropped it in the waste basket. Since then a certain amount of tear-soaked Kleenex had gone the same way but the picture was not quite concealed. Gerald’s face was still visible, smiling through the sog.

Had Honoria seen it? Seen it and filled in the missing links, crossing the ‘t’ in romantic and dotting the ‘i’ in despair. Laura raged at her own carelessness in forgetting the picture was in there. At Honoria for barging in. And at Gerald for being Gerald. Impelled by a mixture of anger and disgust she tipped the contents of the basket into the Raeburn and was immediately and bitterly sorry.

Rex was on the point of starting work. He had thoroughly masticated some bran and prunes, trotted his dog three times round the houses, taken fifty deep breaths in front of an open window and washed his hands. This last was of vital importance. Rex had seen a television interview once with a famous screenwriter during which the man had expressed great reverence for his hands, repeatedly referring to them as ‘the tools of his trade’. They were insured for huge amounts of money, ‘like the feet of Fred Astaire’, and the screenwriter washed them thoroughly each morning, using only the finest triple-milled honey and glycerine soap. After being carefully rinsed in spring water they would be patted dry with a virginally white, soft, fluffy towel kept pristine until that very moment beneath a sealed wrapper. Only then did the celebrated inkslinger even think of approaching his state-of-the-art computer.

Rex had been terribly impressed by the man’s faith in this ritual and straight away claimed it for his own. He knew the importance of routine. All the How To Succeed As A Writer manuals, of which he had practically every one extant, stressed it. Rex started work at eleven a.m. precisely. Not a minute later, not a minute earlier. There was a transistor on his desk to make sure he got it right. As the pips started he picked up his pen. By the time they finished he had written his first sentence. So vital was this procedure that if anything happened to disrupt it he never really recovered. He completed his two thousand words of course (writers write), but nevertheless felt peculiarly out of sync all day.

Now, at five minutes to eleven, someone knocked at the front door of Borodino. Rex, at that very moment turning into his study, heard them with a mixture of irritation and alarm. Would it be a matter he could handle in five - no, he glanced at his pocket watch, nearer four minutes? Or someone who would want to come in and start going on?

One thing was certain. There was no way he could go into his study and settle down with someone standing on the front step. For a start they would spot him through the window. And he couldn’t draw the curtains without giving away the fact that he was in. Botheration take it. He opened the door. It was Gerald.

‘Rex - I’m sorry.’ He stepped inside. ‘I know you start work around now—’

‘Yes. At eleven o’ clock act—’

‘I simply have to talk to you.’

‘Is it about the food?’ Rex was supplying a tin of glazed pralines, having been dissuaded from preparing one of his famous curries.

‘No. Though it is about tonight. In a way.’

To Rex’s dismay Gerald walked into his holy of holies. Just strolled in, lifted yesterday’s pages from the seat of a tapestry wing chair, dropped them on the floor and sat down. Rex stood and hovered, unable to bring himself to sit behind his desk merely for the purpose of idle banter. He waited, but having moved in the first instance so decisively Gerald now seemed to have difficulty getting to the point.

He stared distractedly out at the garden - not seeing the bird table, a battleground of squabbling starlings and sparrows, or Rex’s great hound, Montcalm, absentmindedly truffling among the frosty cabbage stalks - while Rex stared, covertly, at him.

Gerald looked terrible. He had not shaved and looked as if he hadn’t washed either. His eyes were red-rimmed and crusty with sleep. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists while seeming to be unaware of the fact. Rex, genuinely concerned, put all thoughts of The Night of the Hyena aside and said, ‘Gerald old chap. You look completely done in. Would some coffee help?’

Gerald shook his head. Rex, who had drawn up a companion chair, could smell the other man’s breath, sour and stale with more than a hint of liquor. They sat quietly for several minutes and finally Gerald spoke.

‘This is going to sound pathetic.’ A long pause. ‘I don’t really know how to put it.’ He stared at Rex directly for the first time. Half despairing, half ashamed. ‘However described I’m afraid it’ll sound very odd.’

‘I’m sure it won’t,’ said Rex, already consoled for his lost day by finding himself in that most pleasant of positions, consumed by a curiosity that was about to be promptly satisfied.

Gerald had put this moment off again and again. Now there was no time left. And, old and garrulous though he might be, it had to be Rex. There was no one else that Gerald could even consider approaching. Yet how to find the words? Even exposing the barest bones of his dilemma must make him look a fool and a coward. For the first time he noticed the working of his hands and spread them on his knees, pressing the fingers hard against the grey flannel, forcing them to be still.

‘You said it was about tonight,’ said Rex helpfully.

‘Yes.’ He looked like a non-swimmer forced to the end of the high-dive board. ‘The fact is I knew Max Jennings a long time ago. There was some unpleasantness. We parted bad friends.’

‘These things happen.’ Rex tactfully hid his appreciation of what sounded like a very juicy mystery and tried to sound consoling. This wasn’t difficult for he was, at heart, a kind man.

‘Quite honestly,’ continued Gerald, ‘I didn’t think for a minute, when he saw my signature on the invitation, that he would come.’ That letter, so endlessly worked and reworked and all in vain. ‘I don’t know what his reasons are. He can be very ... unpredictable. The thing is, Rex,’ his voice was taut with nervousness, ‘I don’t want to be on my own with him.’

‘Say no more,’ cried Rex, his eyes shining with excitement. ‘But what can I do?’

‘It’s simple really. Just don’t leave until he does.’

‘Of course I will. Or rather - of course I won’t.’ He hesitated. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t care to tell me—’

‘No, I wouldn’t.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘You don’t mind, Rex?’

‘My dear chap.’

‘It might be a bit awkward. Sitting it out, I mean. After all the others have gone.’

‘You think that will happen?’

‘Yes.’

Of course he should never have written at all. That was his big mistake. He should have told the group he had asked and been refused. No one would be surprised. And when they wanted to see the letter, which they always did, he could say that Mr Jennings’ secretary had declined the invitation by telephone. It was Brian, suddenly offering to write himself, which had brought on such a panic. Gerald realised Rex was talking again.

‘Sorry?’

‘I said, what if he turns up before anyone else arrives.’

‘He shouldn’t. I gave him eight instead of seven thirty. And if he does ...’ Even to Rex, Gerald could not admit that he would then be reduced to hiding, like an animal in its lair when the dogs are scrabbling at the entrance.

‘I wish you’d told me earlier, Gerald. We could have changed the venue. Held the meeting somewhere else.’

‘Then he would simply have left when I did. No, this way at least I have some sort of control.’

‘Would you like to come and sleep over here—’

‘For God’s sake!’ Gerald exploded, screwing up his eyes and clenching his fists again. ‘This is how I think it best to handle things - all right?’

‘Of course. Sorry.’

‘No - I’m sorry.’ Gerald got up stiffly and moved towards the door. He added, even while knowing his words would probably be a waste of time, ‘I need hardly say—’

‘Oh, strictly between friends of course. Would you like me to come over at seven, Gerald? Just in case.’

‘Yes. Good idea.’ Gerald managed a weak smile. ‘And thank you.’

Rex escorted his visitor down the path and through the gate, enthusiastically attended by Montcalm. Gerald walked heavily, shoulders bowed. He did not even cheer up when Rex pointed out that, by calling when he had, he’d missed a visit from Honoria, who was, even now, pedalling stolidly away from Plover’s Rest.

Once more back in the house Rex made some coffee and sat at his desk. Not to work of course. As an object of fascination the Hyena, presently in Baghdad buying information from an anti-Husseinite cell, paled in comparison with this real life drama. Of all people, old Gerald - the last word in boring, perhaps even slightly pompous, respectability - had a past. Who would have thought it?

Rex was tempted to pop out to the phone box, barely a minute’s walk away, but hauled temptation firmly back. He must keep his promise, at least till the evening was over. He looked at the clock. Seven and a half hours to go. How on earth was he going to bear it?

Sue had cleared away after supper, stacked the dishes in the sink and was now laying the table for breakfast. Upturned shiny brown cereal bowls, bunny egg cups, ill-matched cutlery and a scruffy plastic tub of home-made muesli with a label designed by herself.

Overhead, music thumped loudly as Amanda supposedly did her homework. Sue always thought of her offspring as Amanda. Allowing her to name the child had been one of the last indulgences that Brian had seen fit to bestow. Even then he had not had the generosity to conceal his displeasure at her choice. Pretentious. Snobbish. Affected. The baby had been ‘Mandy’ from the day of her birth and, once Brian had really got the hang of high-rise /comprehensive linguistic mores, ‘Mand.’

Sue turned on the gas heater over the sink, which popped fiercely. She made a lot of noise washing the dishes, for Brian was in the downstairs loo which opened directly off the kitchen. He never attempted to go about his business quietly, regarding any such discretion as nothing more than middle-class prudishness. Sue, on the other hand, would put toilet paper in the bottom of the bowl if visitors were present, to silence the splash. And as for doing plip-plops, well ...

Now, after an especially defiant raspberry, she heard the squeak of the transom window opening. Brian emerged, doing up his zip. Crossing to the table, he started to fiddle with some school papers, standing them on end, jigging them into neatness, laying them on one side, tapping them level, turning them upright, jigging them again. Sue, tea towel in hand, bared her teeth in a silent grimace and stared out of the window.

Brian had his back to her. His jeans fell, straight as a yard of tap water, from waist to ankle. Sue remembered a friend at teacher-training college saying ‘Never trust a man with no bottom’.

She walked through the sitting room with the bread board, opened the front door and tipped the crumbs into the garden. Gerald’s halogen lamp was on. Sue walked down the path and looked out along the pavement. Parked on the forecourt of Plover’s Rest was a long, low silvery Mercedes. She rushed back into the kitchen, where Brian had fallen into the only armchair and was tackling the Guardian crossword.

‘Brian ... Brian ...’

‘Now what are you getting excited about?’ He spoke as if she spent her entire life in a ferment of agitation.

‘Max Jennings is here.’

‘I think not. It’s barely ten past seven.’

‘Who else could it be?’

‘Who else could what be?’

‘The car.’

‘Your grammar’s more bizarre than your cooking, woman. And that’s saying something.’ Brian had an irritating, snickery little laugh. He gave it now. Hyuf, hyuf.

‘If you don’t believe me, go and look.’

‘I can see I’ll have no peace until I do.’ Sighing, Brian made a great show of marking the crossword clue as if it was a riveting passage in some vastly long epic, drew on his knitted hat and gloves, which were keeping warm on the Aga, and strode out into the cold dark.

He stared sternly at the German beauty gleaming like pulsing steel in the hard white glare. It struck him as deeply unsatisfactory. Not in any way the sort of vehicle you would expect the child of cruel, poverty-stricken parents with an inclination to suicide to be riding around in. He rushed back in out of the cold.

‘He must be pretty insecure to need a car like that.’ Brian picked up his paper, sighing and smoothing it carefully, though it had not been touched since he flung it down. ‘Now ... “Friday’s child gives one a thrill”.’

‘Frisson.’

‘Do you mind?’

‘What?’

‘I do the crossword.’

‘Why can’t we both do it?’

‘Because you always hold me up.’

Sue dried the last dish and hung the tea towel neatly over the metal arm of the sink heater. ‘We’ll have to go soon anyway.’

‘There’s fifteen minutes yet. We don’t all drop everything and jump to it just because someone semi-famous blows a whistle.’

Sue’s round moon face flushed. Over her head Take That increased in volume. Amanda clomped down the stairs, in her weighty platform shoes, clomped into the kitchen and over to the fridge.

‘Hi, Mand.’ Brian immediately put the Guardian down and bestowed upon his daughter’s back an alert and interested look. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Awri.’

Mandy, having taken some apple juice from the fridge, now thundered over to the cake tin.

‘You won’t want your supper,’ said Sue, nodding towards a tray covered with a clean cloth.

Mandy hated sharing meals with her parents. A couple of years ago she had demanded the right to eat only in her room. Brian and Sue, united for once, refused. Mandy had simply stopped eating altogether and how were they to know that she was buying, begging or stealing food elsewhere. They stuck it out for three days then, terrified of anorexia, gave in. Now she helped herself to three flapjacks.

‘You don’t need—’

‘Leave the girl alone.’

Mandy disappeared next door and switched the television on. Sue mopped the draining board, her thoughts on the evening ahead. She wondered what Max Jennings would be like. She had never met a real writer, though she had been in Dillons once when Maeve Binchy was signing copies of her latest bestseller. Unable to afford the book, Sue had stood on the sidelines while those who could queued up. She watched Maeve smiling as she asked the buyer’s name and inscribed a personal message in The Copper Beech.

Sue had so wanted to go up to her. To ask how she got started. How it felt the very first time you sold something. Where she got her ideas from. Eventually she was in the shop so long she felt everyone was staring at her. In a flurry of discomfort she bought a paperback, using money she had been saving for some new brushes.

Standing on a pine bench she opened a cupboard over the breakfast niche and took down the iced carrot cake.

‘Such a palaver.’ Brian would have been horrified had he known how closely his sentiments paralleled Honoria’s. ‘And for what, basically? Some scribbling hack hardly anyone’s heard of.’

‘People buy his books.’

‘They buy his books because they haven’t read them. If they had it’d soon be a different story.’

‘Well. Yes.’

‘Now where are you going?’

‘To put some make-up on.’

‘We’re due there in five minutes - OK?’

‘But you said—’

‘F.I.V.E., five.’

Brian gazed sourly as the long-boned, stooping figure of his wife left the room. On the stroke of seven thirty, when she hadn’t come down, he put on his hat and gloves and left, slamming the door loudly behind him.

When Rex opened the door to Max Jennings he was sure, straight away, that Gerald had nothing to worry about. There was something so warm and appealing, so immediately friendly, about the man. Even when he found himself facing a total stranger and showed a certain amount of surprise the amiable smile remained. Rex introduced himself.

‘Gerald’s upstairs.’ He took the visitor’s camel coat, which was both light and soft as silk. ‘But I am empowered, as they say, to offer you a drink.’

‘How kind.’ Max looked across at the tantalus, which had one decanter missing, and at the heavy tray of assorted bottles. ‘Tonic water please.’

‘With ice and lemon?’

Wondering, indeed hoping, that this choice meant Max was a reformed alcoholic, Rex flourished the tongs. The visitor seemed already quite at home. He was strolling round the room touching things, looking at pictures, bending sideways to read book titles.

Rex noticed, with a little thrill of comprehension, that Gerald’s wedding photograph had disappeared. By the time he had found and sliced a lemon a solution for this manoeuvre had been worked out. The unpleasantness in the past to which Gerald had referred was obviously connected with Grace. They had both loved her but, thinking to know the promptings of her heart, she married Gerald. Alas, on accidentally meeting Max again she realised her mistake. But by then, her life tragically ebbing away, it was too late.

As Rex handed over the drink he looked as sympathetic and understanding as he possibly could without actually giving the game away. Max was sitting comfortably in an armchair, gazing at the long, low coffee table covered with food.

‘I hope I’m not supposed to eat all this.’

‘Good heavens, no,’ Rex laughed. ‘The others will be here any minute.’ Then he remembered that Max had been told the meeting didn’t start till eight. How much there was to keep track of, to be sure, when one was playing a part. He felt a fleeting sympathy for the Hyena, which train of thought led him to wonder if it would be discourteous to take advantage of the present situation to ask Max a few questions. Helper’s perks and all that. Why not?

‘I write spy stories,’ he said, sitting on the sofa, ‘and I was wondering how much time you think one can decently spend on the details of relevant weaponry. I’m very interested in armoured vehicles - the one-ton Humber Hornet especially. I’ve written roughly ten pages describing its various functions. Do you think that’s too long?’

‘I do rather,’ said Max. ‘I’d’ve thought your readers will be wanting to get back to the plot long before then.’

‘Ah, now.’ Rex looked shy and somewhat disconcerted. ‘That is something I have a problem with, plot. Plot, characters, dialogue and descriptions of the natural world. Apart from that, I’m fine.’

Max sipped at his drink, seeming to turn this over, then said, ‘Have you thought about writing non-fiction, Rex? Perhaps a textbook, as you obviously have such specialised knowledge.’

But then the doorbell rang. It was Laura. And no sooner had she taken off her coat than Honoria and Amy arrived.

Laura was more than a little surprised to find herself at Plover’s Rest for, since Honoria’s visit, she had changed her mind about the meeting a thousand times. Veering from knowing she could not bear to see Gerald to knowing she could not bear not to see Gerald; from being sure one minute that she knew exactly how she felt (hated him, hated him) to being sure the very next that there was no way she could possibly know how she felt till their next meeting. The relief when she realised that he was not actually in the room was so tremendous that she was overcome by dizziness and almost fell. This sensation was re-triggered the moment she sat down, when the door was opened again. But it was only Brian, closely followed by Sue, red-faced and puffing from the effort of trying to catch him up.

Brian gave a curt nod in the direction of the guest’s armchair. Sue smiled shyly and shook hands, concealing her surprise, for Max was nothing at all as she had expected. Sue had been picturing a big bluff tweedy man perhaps smoking a pipe. Max Jennings wore tweeds, true, but they were closely woven, beautifully cut and the colour of driftwood and he was smoking slender brown cigars. His heavy linen shirt was the extremely pale shade of green that used to be called eau-de-nil. It was impossible to guess how old he was for, although he had snow-white hair springing back in deep waves from his forehead, his clear, lightly tanned skin was quite unlined. And Sue had never seen such eyes. Brilliant azure. The blue of Moroccan skies. Matisse blue. He was slightly built and not very tall.

Brian, having taken a seat within easy reach of the banquet, flung one baggily trousered leg over its fellow and stared contemptuously around. What a pathetic lot. Dressed up to the nines as if for royalty. Amy wore frills, Rex his dusty pinstriped funeral gear, Honoria a halfway decent Daks skirt and heather-mixture cardigan. Laura had excelled herself in a narrow black dress and Chinese brocade jacket. As for Sue, well ...

A rainbow-patterned full-length caftan over a badly bobbled limegreen mohair jersey. Hair half plaited, half not (she had panicked on hearing the front door slam) and too much highly coloured make-up. Brian, once he had caught his wife’s eye, rolled back his own, registered disbelief and shook his head. Then, satisfied that his state of absolute unimpressedness had been observed by one and all he reached out and helped himself to a sandwich.

‘Don’t you think,’ called Honoria, as loudly as if he were still in his own kitchen next door, ‘that it might be courteous to wait until all of us are present? Or, at the very least, until you are asked.’

‘Folks uz wait till they’re arst,’ replied Brian, thinking to speak broadest Yorkshire, ‘get nowt.’ Then, having shown his independence and provoked the desired response, he crammed the sandwich into his mouth and said, ‘Where’s Gerald?’

A question no sooner asked than answered. Footsteps were heard running quickly down the stairs and, a moment later, their host came into the room. He went straight across to Max Jennings’ corner, holding out his hand and apologising profusely for not being present when Max arrived. He then introduced himself. Twice.

Rex felt gravely let down. One of the ways he had killed time that afternoon was by writing and re-writing this meeting of Gerald and Max in his mind. He had imagined all sorts of permutations. Some quite tame, some funny, others wildly unreasonable. What he had not considered for a moment was that Gerald would simply pretend that they had never met before.

Now Max was getting up, taking the outstretched hand and gracefully turning the apologies aside. Looked as if the play was going to be over before it had even started. Rex’s disappointment deepened when it struck him that perhaps Max genuinely did not remember the incident in the past that had caused Gerald such distress. How humiliating. Comforting too, of course. In a way. He indicated the spare place beside him on the sofa and Gerald sat down. Rex smelt brandy and recalled the missing decanter.

Now everyone was present there was a general flutter of anticipation followed, quite quickly, by a rather unnatural stillness. The meeting (Laura and Gerald excepted) gazed at Max Jennings with a constrained vitality that plainly declared a desire for action. He returned a hesitating smile. Sue wondered if he was waiting for some sort of formal introduction, which was surely only proper, but no one seemed moved to give one and eventually he began to speak. His voice was low and musical, with an accent that she could not quite place.

‘If I start by saying “unaccustomed as I am” I can assure you it’s no more than the truth. I’ve simply never done this sort of thing before. I haven’t prepared anything, I’m afraid. Just come along to see what you wanted. And how, if at all, I can help.’

For a moment there was silence. People looked around uncertainly. It was as if years of rejected invitations had left them unsure they were hearing right. That they were, in fact, sitting in their usual gathering place but this time with the real McCoy - a living, breathing professional writer who had actually offered to help if he could. The sheer novelty of the situation seemed to be about to prove too much for them.

Then Brian uncrossed his legs, leaned forward and, with an expression of great solemnity, cleared his throat—

‘I am in the process of writing,’ declared Honoria, ‘the history of my family, which is to say the history of England. The Lyddiard blood has, without the slightest taint of bastardy ...’

Brian, irritated almost beyond endurance at being pipped at the post, sat back but in a pouncy, gathered manner as if to warn all present that he would not be cheated a second time. Consumed with resentment, he tried to stop his ears against Honoria’s droning recitation. If he had been even halfway actively true to his principles he should, long since, have thrust two fingers right up her high bridged, bonily Roman, aristocratic hooter. The fact that he had never been able to bring himself to do this he blamed on his emasculating parents and their ghastly, toadying enthusiasm for society’s upper crust.

Brian had bitter memories of being forced to take his cap off in the village high street every time a member of the fox-and-hounds squirearchy trotted by. He had been cruelly mocked by his peers for these archaic genuflections and had complained in anguish to his parents, only to be told that such little courtesies were the cement that held society together. There would always be a man on horse-back and one on foot, his father had explained. It was the natural order of things.

Brian stamped on this sorry drift and tuned back into the present just in time to hear, ‘... in every battle or even the meanest confrontation the Lyddiards always hunted in full steel.’

Honoria then made the mistake of pausing, both for breath and in order to evoke an admiring response. Max immediately obliged. ‘It sounds a most worthwhile endeavour. Now,’ he smiled encouragingly around the room, ‘what about the rest of you? Um. Amy, isn’t it?’

‘Oh. Yes.’ Amy, flustered at being unexpectedly called on, fumbled in her pocket and produced a little square of paper. No need to open it, for she had her first question off by heart. Keenly aware of how very slender her acquaintance was with the world of New York socialites on the razzle, Parisian models on the catwalk and Italian princelings on the make, she said, ‘We’re always being told, Mr Jennings—’

‘Max, please.’

‘Max. That we should only write about what we know. Isn’t that a bit limiting?’

‘I don’t think it’s meant to be taken in the narrow, literal sense. One can know things - quite wild, fantastic things - to be true in the imagination.’

‘You mean like science fiction?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Also, whenever I’m writing a scene I keep thinking of other ways that might be better. And I never know whether to stop and start again or carry on.’

‘I’m afraid that’s par for the course. Writers spend their lives haunted by discarded alternatives.’

How tactful he was, Laura thought, glancing briefly at Max’s engaged, intelligent profile before turning her attention back to Gerald. Plainly something was wrong there. Very wrong indeed. His body, balanced on the very edge of the sofa, was curved in the shape of a half hoop and taut as a drawn bow. His face was impassive, but Laura sensed, from the knotted cords in his neck, that it was kept thus only by the most tremendous effort. She realised as well that although, like the rest of them, his head was turned in Max’s direction his eyes were fixed at a point on the wall beyond Max’s shoulder. One of his shoes, Veldschoen, conker-bright with a pattern of punched holes in the toe cap and gingery laces, tapped urgently on the carpet.

Looking at him, loving him, Laura became aware from the familiar churning of her stomach that nothing had changed. Faithless he might be, but she was still in his thrall, as she had been from that first moment. She would just have to accept the blonde. End up probably like the baron’s wife in Balzac’s Cousine Bette, dying in her bed of love starvation while he tumbled the maid downstairs. Dragging her attention away she saw that Max was, momentarily, watching her. Then knew that this quick bright observance had led him to understand her feelings exactly. Annoyed and resentful she stared hard at him in return, letting her displeasure show.

Amy was asking her final question: what were the most important attributes for an author to have?

‘A wayfaring mind. Nothing should be beneath our attention. And stamina. You have to hang on in there.’

‘But you were successful straight off,’ said Brian, rudely emphasising the personal pronoun.

‘I was fortunate. Even then, in a way, one is always back to square one. Each new book is started from scratch. And of course success can antagonise. Critics come gunning for you. My historical novels come in for quite a bit of flack.’

‘I was wondering ...’ Although Sue had taken a deep, calming breath her voice still quaked. ‘Have you had any experience at all with children’s books?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘I paint, you see ... pictures.’

Pictures eh? How amazing. Brian’s thoughts were ruefully plain as he made equalising eye contact with their guest. What can you do with them? He said, ‘I suggested she start with a few short stories or poems but she wouldn’t have it.’

‘How wise. They’re almost impossible to sell.’ He smiled encouragingly at Sue. ‘What are the paintings about?’

‘A dragon called Hector.’

‘And does he eat people?’

‘Only thin ones. He’s on a diet.’

‘I love it!’ Max gave a splendid and apparently quite spontaneous laugh and Sue’s confidence was persuaded into a brief florescence. Not that the play group did not regularly fall about when she described Hector’s adventures but, as Brian said when she had first told him, what do a bunch of kids know?

She looked across at her husband tapping his chin with his index finger, thin lips moving slightly - a sign that he was polishing up some pithy, controversial dialogue. But as he leaned forward Honoria lumbered into the vertical.

‘I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m hungry. And I’m sure Mr Jennings must be too.’

There was a swell of apologetic murmuring. Amy took a plate and napkin to their guest. Gerald came to life, murmuring ‘coffee, coffee’, and almost ran into the kitchen, followed closely by Rex.

Honoria, having quickly constructed for herself a tottering tower of assorted goodies, returned to her seat, saying loudly as she passed Brian, ‘Your mouth’s open.’

Brian, furious at having been once more cheated of his moment d’estime and convinced he heard the words ‘common little man’ floating back over Honoria’s shoulder, snapped his jaws together. The circle broke up. Laura went to help with the coffee and found Gerald and Rex deep in animated conversation. They were patently disturbed when the door opened and Gerald frowned so forcefully that she immediately withdrew.

In the drawing room people had changed seats. Amy and Sue had moved closer to Max, who was nibbling on a cream-cheese wheel, to pose problems they had been too shy to ask about publicly. Laura glanced over what was left of the food. There was nothing she really fancied. In any case she was still experiencing a faint queasiness - a sensation she knew from experience would be with her until she was well away from Plover’s Cottage. She cut a fragile slice of Sue’s carrot cake and turned away quickly from the sight of Rex’s de Montargis pralines. They looked like the varnished brains of tiny mammals and she could not possibly envisage putting one into her mouth.

Brian, far from defeated and biding his time, sat, a well-filled plate on either knee, listening to the oh-so-predictable questions. Did Max work regular hours? (Nine till five.) Did he rewrite much? (Everything. All the time.) Did he start with plot or characters? (Indivisible. The characters are the plot.) Did he do much research? (As little as possible. Preferred an educated guess. Often wrong.)

At this point Gerald and Rex appeared with two cafetières and jugs of milk which they put on the sideboard already laid with cups and saucers. Honoria cried ‘At last,’ as if the pair were a couple of tardy waiters.

Amy left Max Jennings’ side at this point to fetch him some coffee and Brian seized his chance. Slipping into her place, he began to describe his thrice-weekly drama sessions.

‘... building rather than writing a play, which I regard frankly as a totally passé word. Not to say elitist.’

‘Which word?’

‘Pardon?’

‘“Building”, “writing”, or “play”?’

‘Oh. “Writing”.’

‘I see.’

‘We work in a very loose, inspirational way. Rapping, improvising, free association. We are talking totally knife edge here. You hit the ground running at my rehearsals, believe me, or you are out. O.U.T., out.’

‘Tough stuff.’

‘I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Mike Leigh?’

‘Of course.’

‘What did you think of Naked?’

‘Deeply patronising and sloppy.’

Brian fell back. One swift movement as if someone had punched him hard in the chest. He seemed bereft of speech and just sat there, aghast.

‘Not to mention far too long.’

‘Come and help yourself everyone,’ called Rex from across the room. They all did. Amy took some back for Honoria, who was by then asking their guest a final question.

‘Who do you think’ - she leaned forward, heavy legs in peat-brown shooting stockings set sturdily apart - ‘would be the best company, once my history is complete, to approach? I don’t want it published by just any old firm.’

‘I’m afraid I’m not a good person to ask, Miss Lyddiard. My contacts are all in the field of fiction.’

‘Really?’ Honoria sounded cross and nonplussed. ‘But we thought you’d have a much broader range of knowledge than that. Right across the board as it were.’ Her eyes bored into the remaining morsel of cheesy wheel on Max’s plate as if he had devoured the rest under false pretences.

‘I thought that too,’ said Brian quickly. Bloody celebrities. He’d had enough. Smug inflated self-important windbags. Who the hell did they think they were? Emptying his second plate by pushing two Florentines into his mouth at once Brian sprang vigorously to his feet. ‘Sue?’

‘Yes.’

‘Come.’

‘But I’ve only just—’

‘Very well. Stay here if you wish. Far be it from me—’

‘No.’ The aftermath would simply not be worth it: ‘It’s all right.’ She put down her barely tasted coffee.

Gerald brought Sue’s shawl and Brian’s tartan windcheater out of the downstairs cloakroom. Then he went back for everyone else’s things, whereupon they all felt it was time to go and the meeting was suddenly over.

Laura, aware that Gerald had been completely routed throughout the evening by forces of which she was completely ignorant, now saw that their guest, who had also risen with an air of imminent departure, would leave without as much as a thank you were it left to the group secretary. So she made a brief speech saying how very helpful and entertaining the visit had been and Rex, Sue and Amy echoed the sentiments and clapped loudly.

As Gerald opened the front door an icy blast whistled into the house. Amy and Honoria muffled their faces and hurried away, followed by Brian and Sue. Laura turned on the doorstep, looking up at Gerald, who had his hand on the door’s edge as if anxious to push it to. Laura stared hard into his face. Always aware that she had never known him, she now knew, with a terrible daunting certainty, that she never would. It was unbearable. She reached out and seized his arm. It felt like a piece of wood.

‘Gerald, what is it? What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’ Angrily he snatched his arm away. His eyes were screwed up against the glare of the lamp and his mouth was as narrow as a piece of string.

‘There’s something wrong.’

‘Don’t talk such nonsense.’

‘You’re afraid.’

‘Really, Laura. What on earth has got into you tonight?’

‘It’s true.’ He was about to close the door, she could see it. Without a breath of hesitation (it always seemed to Laura afterwards that she had no choice in the matter) she leaned forward and kissed him.

With a look of absolute amazement Gerald stepped quickly backwards and forcefully closed the door. He was still trembling when he returned to the living room.

Max had draped his beautiful camel-hair and cashmere overcoat over the back of a chair and was sitting on the sofa. Rex was stacking the coffee cups. Gerald walked straight through to the kitchen without speaking to either of them.

A few moments later Rex entered with his loaded tray. The two men stared at each other, then Rex, eyes shining, mouthed silently and with gross over-emphasis, Don’t Worry. Then, aloud and at an equally inappropriate level, ‘Shall I help you wash up, Gerald?’

‘Mrs Bundy will be here at ten.’

He spoke normally but Rex, reluctant to abandon his new plot line, pointed urgently at the other room, mimed the chore, then indicated the kitchen clock.

Gerald presumed all this to mean that if they took their time over the washing up Max would get tired of waiting and leave. He wished to God they’d both leave. He wished Rex wasn’t enjoying himself quite so much. He wished the pain would go away.

‘Could I be a terrible nuisance and ask for some more coffee?’ Gerald and Rex jumped. They hadn’t even heard him get up. ‘Just to keep me going for the drive home.’

‘Of course.’ Gerald painted a smile on his face. Hanging on to the words ‘drive home’, he emptied the grounds from the smaller of the cafetières. It slipped from his fingers to lie in the sink.

‘Instant will do.’

‘I don’t have instant. One for you, Rex?’

‘Definitely.’

They all stood around like figures in an exhibition until the coffee was made, then took their beakers back to the sitting room. Here, in spite of Max’s previous hint of a fairly prompt departure, he began what proved to be a very lengthy conversation about money. The pound against the dollar and why its fluctuations affected his income. How the spread of democracy meant he was now published in the Eastern bloc, although it wasn’t always easy or even possible to get the royalties out. The frolicsome lira and the advantage of being paid in Deutschmarks. The nervous yen.

Rex listened, wondering how much longer he would be able to stay conscious. He was usually fast asleep by ten, for he would be awoken by Montcalm, seeking his morning constitutional, on the crack of five thirty. He thought, for the first time, that all this wasn’t quite fair of Gerald. Then he became aware that Max had asked Gerald a question and was waiting, with an expression of polite interest, for an answer.

‘Short stories mainly.’ Gerald studied the drawn curtains behind his interrogator’s head. ‘Unpublished, before you ask.’ His nostrils were pinched, rimmed white with tension.

Feeling he was not pulling his weight, Rex described his own attempts at a series of short stories featuring the adventures of an early Gatling gun. His jaw began to ache and his skin itched with tiredness. Then, just as another lengthy pause seemed to be yawning, Max suddenly got up and said he really must be going.

‘It’s been a most enjoyable evening.’

‘It was good of you to come.’ Gerald seemed not to notice the outstretched hand.

In the hall Rex tried to catch Gerald’s eye, hoping for a conspiratorial exchange. A significant glance perhaps? Raised eyebrows. A nod of satisfaction at a job well done. But he was unlucky. Gerald did not even accompany them, but remained at the far end of the hall tapping, then reading, the barometer with close attention as if he was already alone. He did not even say ‘goodnight’, never mind ‘thank you’.

Rex opened the door and stepped over the threshold. Max followed, said, ‘My gloves,’ turned back into the house and closed the door. A bolt slid into place. In less than a second the very thing that Rex had promised faithfully to prevent had taken place.

Half an hour later and Rex was in his bedroom. Not preparing to sleep, for shock had woken him up entirely, but because the view from his window included the frontage of Plover’s Rest. The silver Mercedes was still there. The wind had got up a treat and it was raining.

After the slippy manoeuvre that had left him shut out, Rex had hung around for several minutes not knowing what to do. He had put his ear to the door jamb at one point, listening for he knew not what. Sounds of violence perhaps? Gerald trying to push Max forcibly out? But there was nothing. Not even the murmur of voices.

After a while Rex started to feel foolish. He felt he should have walked off straight away. Perhaps they were waiting for him to do this before starting their conversation. Then he thought, what if someone passed by, saw him hanging round in the porch and reported him. Wasn’t loitering an actionable offence? This disquieting recollection, plus the fact that he was desperate to go to the loo, set him striding down the path, shutting the gate loudly to announce his exit.

Now he was wondering guiltily if he had done the wrong thing. He recalled how vehemently Gerald had spoken when urging his co-operation in the matter of Max’s departure. Anyone would think it was a matter of life and death. Rex was quickly coming round to the idea that he had given up too easily.

Hadn’t the bolting of the front door been rather ... well ... sinister? There was no doubt in Rex’s mind that Max had been responsible. It had been so quickly accomplished that Gerald could not have reached the door in time. The conviction that he had made an error grew, soon gripping Rex to a degree where he could no longer stand there and do nothing.

He rushed downstairs, suddenly in a bigger hurry to return to Gerald’s cottage than he had ever been to get away. No need to put on a coat, for he had not taken off his British warm. Rex hesitated by the collection of beautifully polished walking sticks in the hall before, feeling absurdly melodramatic, selecting one with a silver buffalo-head handle. Then he put on his cord cap, secured it with a woollen scarf tied under his chin, and strode off.

The gate of Plover’s Rest now stood half open. He walked boldly up the path. He had decided to knock on the back door and ask to borrow some milk. Transparent certainly and, like most people unaccustomed to lying, Rex had already reinforced this simple request by an elaborate sub-structure of quite unnecessary detail. When he couldn’t sleep only cocoa helped. Made with water it gave him tummy ache. Milk bottle slipped through his fingers when taking it from the fridge and smashed on the floor. Saw Max’s car so knew you would still be up.

There was no light in the kitchen but the inner door was open and Rex could see through to the section of room in which Max was sitting. He was talking and gesturing in an open-handed rather appealing way, as if he were offering a present. Then he became silent and his stance changed. He shook his head vigorously and leaned forward, listening. His profile showed a deeply involved attention. He looked - Rex sought for the exact word - concerned. Yes, that was it. Deeply concerned. Like a Samaritan.

Now, if only he could see Gerald. Rex screwed his head sideways, laid his cheek against the glass and squinnied with effort, but all to no avail. He stood upright again, aware of a sharp crick in his neck. Everything seemed all right. It looked, in fact, as if old Gerald had been worrying over nothing. Anticipating a disaster that just wasn’t going to happen. On the other hand, he (Rex) had definitely promised ...

It was precisely then, as he stood hesitating, that Rex became aware of an unpleasant, crawly feeling somewhere between his shoulder blades. After a moment the feeling intensified and changed direction, worming its way coldly down his spine. He swung around.

Behind him barely defined trees gathered, crowding the bare borders, together with dense, black clumps of shrubs. Gripping his stick, telling himself that the kitchen door was a mere few feet away, Rex moved towards the willow fence. Then, staring hard into the massed trunks and tangle of branches, he called out.

‘Hullo?’ Silence. No leaf rustled. Not a night creature moved. ‘Is there anybody there?’

Rex heard only his own breathing. But he knew, as surely as he felt the freezing ground beneath his feet, that someone, or something, was out there. And staring straight back at him.