They went up a long, straight road, first flanked by terraced houses, then, as he accelerated, by larger houses oozing prosperity, set back in gardens with tarpaulin-covered yachts in the driveways. The church was on their right. Geoff Markham was good on churches, liked to walk around them, and this one, through his side window, looked to be worth a quarter of an hour, a fine tower, solid as a fortress, a wide nave, safe as a refuge. Beyond it was a stark facade of flint ruins, the clerestory windows open to the concrete grey of the cloud. He turned his head to see the ruins better. There was a chuckle beside him.

About as dead as the rest of the wretched place."

Fenton, he knew, lived in Beaconsfield, not on his own salary but on family money; couldn't have managed Beaconsfield, the restaurants, the delicatessens and the bijou clothes shops where his wife went on a desk head's wage. Money was seldom far from Geoff Markham's thoughts, nagging like a dripping tap. Vicky and his future were about money. He was driving faster.

It was strange, but he hadn't seemed to register the village when they came into it, less than an hour before. It had not seemed a part of the present and the future. The village was history, to be left behind once the removal van had arrived. But no removal van was coming, and the village its lay-out, entry and exit route, topography, community was as important as any of those isolated white-walled farmhouses in South Armagh, Fermanagh and East Tyrone.

Fenton was again massaging his moustache and showed no interest in what was around him. Through the trees was the shimmer of silver grey from stretching inland water. The road in front was straight and empty, he had no need to concentrate. Markham's mind was on the landscape, as it would have been if he had been driving in Ireland.

They reached the crossroads, and the main road for Ipswich, Colchester and London. He paused for traffic with the right of way, and the smile brightened on Fenton's face. He checked the distance they had come since leaving the house.