"First sign of life we've seen…"

Markham should have stopped to apologize but kept going: he wanted away from the place. He knew nothing of the sea and it held no particular attraction for him. He thought it chill and threatening.

They went past a small shop with pottery and postcards in the window from which faces peered. They would have heard the woman's protest. There was a tearoom beside the shop, shuttered for the winter. They swept past the village hall, a low-set building with an old Morris outside. Then there was a pub with an empty car-park.

"Thank the Lord, the open road beckons. Could you live here, Geoff, in this dead end?"

They'd both seen it. The estate agents' for-sale sign was propped in an untrimmed hedge beside a crazily hanging gate with the faded name on it, Rose Cottage. Beyond was a small overgrown garden, then a darkened cottage with the curtains drawn, no lights showing. The rainwater cascaded from the blocked gutters, and tiles were missing from the roof. It would be 'three bedrooms, bathroom, two reception, kitchen, in need of modernization'. And it would also be, down here on the Suffolk coast, ninety thousand pounds before the builders went in. But all that was irrelevant to Markham. He was wondering how Perry was facing up the devastation they'd left behind them.

Sort of place, Geoff. where the major entertainment off-season would be screwing your sister or your daughter or your niece. Eh?"

Not since he had come back from Ireland and gone to work on the Mid East (Islamic) Desk, had he heard his superior utter anything as crude. He was shocked, wouldn't have believed Fenton capable of such vulgarity. The bitter little confrontation with Perry had rattled him.