She shoved the meat and lettuce on to the kitchen table and led him down the gloomy Victorian wing and through the drawing-room window on to the terrace.

‘Maud, Bea,’ she said, ‘Andrew has arrived.’

Maud had decked herself out in a large straw hat à la Bloomsbury and, a little unsteady on her feet, was leaning against the stone balustrade for support. Bea was sitting on one of the rusty chairs, sewing. Rust flakes had landed on her light green cardigan and one or two had migrated to a very pale cheek. She smiled at Andrew. ‘We’ve been hearing about your farm.’

Maud commandeered the remaining chair. ‘You look a bit undernourished,’ she commented. ‘Doesn’t your wife feed you?’

Andrew was amused. ‘I’ve always been thin, Mrs Campion.’

Agnes bent over Bea and brushed the particles of rust from her cheek. ‘I think you’ll like him,’ she whispered. Bea snipped at a piece of thread and Agnes realized that she had been sewing a button on to Freddie’s blazer. She watched the small fingers pat and dart, smoothing the material with enormous consideration. ‘You’re always doing something,’ she commented, with a rush of affection.

Bea looked up in her unobtrusive way. ‘Keeping busy makes me feel useful. It’s the small things, I always think. They keep one in touch with what’s important.’ With the care of the trusted custodian, she laid Freddie’s blazer to one side. ‘You wait, Agnes, until you’re older.’

‘And what has persuaded you to leave your cows?’ Maud was asking.

Andrew fixed his eyes on Agnes. ‘I’m on my way back from a meeting with an eco-warrior.’

‘A what?’

Andrew explained who the Gladiator was. ‘He’s an expert in burrowing and protesting against road- and house-building.’

‘Burrowing? Is that really necessary?’

Andrew said gravely, ‘I want to save my farm. Any tactic will do.’

‘How refreshing.’ Maud breathed in sharply, the powdered planes of her face working. ‘There’s far too much niceness about. Non? It will be the death of us.’ She swivelled to face Andrew. ‘I plan not to be nice at all from now on. I’ve wasted my life being nice.’

‘So have I,’ said Andrew, at a stroke creating a skilful complicity between himself and Maud.

‘We like each other. You can fetch the drinks now, Agnes.’ Maud twitched at her skirt.

‘I like the sound of your farm.’ Bea spoke up. ‘Do tell us about it.’

Maud fidgeted while Agnes handed out sherry. Andrew had begun a brief description when she cut him off. Agnes, you have remembered that Freddie’s coming to lunch?’

Bea’s sewing slipped to the ground. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ she said, as Andrew swooped to pick it up. ‘I must go and do things in the kitchen at once.’

In the kitchen, the remains of Cromwell had dripped a pool of blood on to the floor which settled into the loosened grout between the tiles.

After lunch, Freddie took Maud off for a drive and Bea, who declared she felt a trifle under the weather, went upstairs for a rest. Agnes and Andrew set out for a walk.

Thermals of warm air rose from the steps. ‘The house and grounds are about fifteen acres. It used to be bigger but various Campions have sold it off piecemeal.’

Andrew shaded his eyes and looked over to the houses hugging the perimeter wall. ‘Prime land, though. Who built that lot?’ He gestured at the cluster of villas whose roofs peered above the wall.

‘The farmer sold off-his field and the developers went ahead, despite the protests, built them and sold them to people who had never even heard of the village. Half of them don’t live here during the week.’

‘Like you?’

She grinned. ‘Hey, I do live here.’

They walked over the meadow to the river and she thought how much she liked his straightforward attitude. You knew where you were with someone like Andrew. He told you how it was. ‘I like the idea of you going into battle as an eco-warrior armed with cyber weapons and old-fashioned spades.’

‘You’ve probably filmed a lot of protest.’

‘Yes.’ She thought of the struggle she had had to get behind the lens and to get what she saw right. ‘But as an observer rather than a doer.’ She bent down, fingers tugging at the sappy grass. ‘It’s time to jump down off the fence. About the house, I mean.’ She crunched a stalk between her teeth and he observed how white they were against the pink-red of her lips. ‘But there isn’t much money’ She threw the grass away.

He said, with a rush, ‘The planning inquiry is coming up soon.’

‘I know.’ She paused. ‘Andrew, what will you do if it goes against you?’

He said stubbornly, ‘It won’t. Or, put it this way, I’m buckling on the armour. I won’t make it easy for them.’ He shoved his hands into his pockets with a force that threatened to drive them through the material. ‘And there’s the programme. I’m sure it will make a difference.’

It was not often that her work had such a direct bearing on a situation and she felt a small glow of selfish pleasure. Andrew wiped the sweat from his forehead and cleared his throat. Agnes, I don’t often get drunk. I wouldn’t like you to think that.’

She looked down at his tanned forearms. Andrew…’

‘I apologize for that night.’

‘We all do it,’ she said.

‘Penny isn’t coming back.’ He seemed anxious to let her know. ‘Given the circumstances, I don’t want her back.’ There. He was saying: the way is cleared for you and me.

The level of the river had dropped, quite normal in summer, and the long weed streamed through it, like a drowning woman’s hair. Andrew hunkered down and dabbled his finger in the chalk-filtered water. ‘Trout?’

‘Well, there are lots of fisherman’s tales in the village.’

Andrew stood up and wiped his hand on his trousers. ‘I imagine there’s a bit of a frost pocket.’ He indicated the hollow between two ancient oaks and the north wall. Then he bent down again and scraped away at the earth. ‘Loamy soil. All you need is drainage, and you’d have very good grazing.’

‘Goodbye, irises.’

‘You ought to keep bees. They’d do well here. Lots of nice rich clover. It’s the swarming season. You could lure in a colony.’

Agnes threw away her grass stalk. ‘Why do they swarm?’

‘The hive becomes too crowded and unless they sort it out the bees becomes diseased and aggressive. Anyway, it’s time to chuck out the old queen in favour of a younger one.’

‘Poor queen.’ Agnes took the path alongside the river and beckoned to Andrew. Her words floated back to him. ‘Imagine, flying up into the sky, old in knowledge and bee sex, knowing that her airborne mating will result in another queen, who will usurp her.’

They walked as far as the boundary wall and leaned up against it. This was a good point from which to view the village.

‘It’s all very civilized and obedient,’ he pronounced at last. ‘Not like the moody moor.’

Agnes rallied in defence. ‘Are you saying the supermarket and the motorway have won? No ancient gods?’ She scraped at a curl of lichen on the wall, and its sage-green dust sprouted under her fingernail. ‘They are still here. They just had to find new hiding places, that’s all.’

His hand trapped hers against the stone. ‘I can only see what’s in my own backyard.’

Hand pinioned, she asked, ‘How do you like my house?’

He kept his gaze fixed on Agnes. ‘It’s very fine.’

Agnes removed her hand, and Andrew was aware that he had disappointed her.

They walked back to the terrace. Thick clumps of Jamaican daisies bloomed in the cracks of the steps and the sun had picked out white and orange moss circles fanning across the stone. In the trees, wood pigeons cooed.

‘You need to do some repairs.’ Andrew tested the bottom step with a foot. ‘This is pretty ropy’

‘You remind me of Mr Harvey’

Andrew made the same criticism of the walls in the kitchen garden, and offered advice on double digging, compost and where to site the bees. A slight frown appeared on Agnes’s face, so he did not mention that he suspected that all the sash windows would need replacing and the kitchen wing looked as though it was subsiding.

‘Had you considered getting the kitchen sorted out first?’ he suggested finally, noticing the frown deepen. ‘You would feel better.’

They were loitering in the walled garden, enjoying the warmth. Agnes picked up shards of glass and stones and placed them in containers she had left there for the purpose. She straightened up. ‘I dream of a warm, functioning kitchen with a honey-coloured flagstone floor.’ She laughed. ‘I don’t know why, I’m a rotten cook.’

As he drove up the drive and parked by the front door, Flagge House levelled challenging and hostile eyes at Julian. Since that night, three weeks ago – three years – he had gone over and over the situation and he could not work out if it was Agnes’s rejection that so piqued him, or that he had lost control over the situation. He could see the problem, he could hear the explanation – a spoilt man wanting his way-but they did not add up. The mental picture of his life running on oiled wheels, work, mistress, odd love affair, was still clear in his mind but the edges had blurred, and he was conscious of serious shortfalls of feeling and tenderness, and of the wish to help himself to them.

Of Kitty he could not quite bring himself to think.

He hauled on the brake. At the same time, Agnes and Andrew emerged from the kitchen garden. They moved slowly, absorbed and at ease, deep in conversation.

Agnes looked up and gave a visible start. She sent him an angry, disappointed look which asked, Why?

At a disadvantage, and not a little sickened by himself, Julian waited for Agnes to approach him.

‘I’m en route to a project in Dorchester and I thought I’d drop this off.’ He produced a video from the back of the car. Angela tracked it down so I can’t claim any credit, but it’s about the SOE. I thought it might interest you.’