The room grew very hot and the inspector asked for the windows to be opened. Immediately, a roar of traffic drowned the proceedings and they had to be closed.

The atmosphere grew stifling. Sweat trickled from numerous armpits and left high-tide marks on shirts and blouses. The acoustics made it impossible for those at the back of the hall to hear. The chairs were hard and uncomfortable. One man grew desperate, got up and reopened one window. Again the room was invaded by the smell of car fumes and noise.

Half an hour later, Andrew was invited by the inspector at the top table to submit to cross-examination. He felt in his pocket for his handkerchief (oh, God, agonized Penny, in her seat, for it was obviously not a clean one) wiped his hands and noted with satisfaction the sheen of sweat on his opponents’ faces.

‘Mr Kelsey,’ said the inspector, ‘could you please identify for us what actual harm or disadvantage this development would have on the community? I should emphasize to the listeners that these are your opinions.’

Arcadian’s barrister took over, his professional manner suggesting that he was quite used to filleting the opposition.

‘Mr Kelsey,’ he was deceptively mild, ‘am I right in thinking that if the development is accepted you will lose your farm?’

Jed raised the camera to his shoulder and Agnes instructed him in an undertone. The big round eye of the lens followed obediently.

‘Mr Stone has served me notice. Yes.’

‘Do you like your work? Love it, even?’

‘It is my life’s work.’

The tone sharpened, carrying a hint of scepticism. ‘Then it is fair to say that your opinion will not be unbiased? That you would hardly welcome having to surrender your business, and your arguments against would be motivated by a desire to preserve it?’

Agnes whispered to Jed, who padded down the side aisle. Andrew forced himself to remain calm. ‘My business contributes to the community. Even if I wish, which I do, to save my farm from the bulldozers, it does not necessarily mean that my arguments are…’ he tested the word ‘… invalid.’

‘Quite right.’ A woman at the back sprang to her feet.

Used to such interruptions, the barrister hardly paused. ‘Mr Kelsey, would it be true to say that you could, if necessary, set up the same farm operation somewhere else?’

‘Yes, I could, but it would take years to build it up again.’

He was cut short by the barrister. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the facts are here, that Exbury is overcrowded and in need of additional housing, which my clients plan to offer at some cost in order to make as sympathetic and viable a project as possible. It is not in dispute that Mr Kelsey would lose his undoubtedly useful and productive farm but he could move his operations elsewhere. The question must therefore be, which is of greater benefit to the community? The housing that is required? Or a beef farm run on traditional lines?’

This was it. Andrew found himself on his feet and addressing the audience. ‘Remember, these people have no knowledge of the land. They are imports, hired at great cost, and they have to earn their wages. They don’t care about our community. Only the profits from it.’

‘Oh, really,’ said the cool Arcadian barrister. ‘May I remind listeners that Mr Kelsey is defending what he perceives as his livelihood.’

Andrew swung round, blue eyes blazing, and said, through gritted teeth, ‘You sanctimonious bugger.’

At five thirty, the inspector closed the inquiry and requested that all parties opposed to the development should produce a list of conditions that, in their view, should be imposed on the development, if it was allowed to proceed. In addition, there would be a site visit at ten a.m. the following day.

By the time Andrew emerged from the hall Penny had vanished, but Agnes, with a pile of gear at her feet, was waiting.

‘Hallo, Andrew.’ She shifted a file from under one arm to the other.

Tense and angry, he grasped her by the shoulders and shook her. Agnes, I lost it.’

Agnes, Bel and Jed stayed in Exbury’s best bed-and-breakfast. Agnes spent a restless night, and at nine thirty, feeling uncharacteristically out of sorts, she drove the other two over to the farm. It was a soft, beautiful day, and the cries of curlews and swallows and cattle noises batted to and fro in the warm air. The back door opened on to an empty kitchen. Agnes stuck her head through the study window. That, too, was empty.

She checked her watch and, taking turns to carry the equipment, set off for the north field. The route took them down the old drovers’ road, between hedges so high that it was impossible to see anything except the oblong of sky above.

‘Stop,’ cried Agnes. There were raised voices, a whine of machinery being driven at high speed, followed by the short, sharp scream of a woman. Agnes broke into a run and, weighed down by the camera, Jed brought up the rear.

Emerging first from the drovers’ track, Agnes came to a halt. ‘Oh, God,’ she said.

The north field had been earmarked by Arcadian Villages to fall first to the developer’s bulldozer because it had the most convenient access to the main road. Now its lush, untreated grass, strewn with stars of red poppy and blue cornflower, was a mass of flame.

Smoke wreathed in layers over the field before, marshalled by a thermal, it streamed up towards the moor and into the sky. Under the pall it cast over the field writhed red and gold tongues of fire from seven… nine… ten bonfires, constructed of stooked straw bales.

Both the women clapped their hands to their mouths and Agnes gagged.

‘Weird,’ said Bel, a grin streaking across her face.

She beckoned to Jed and pointed out the inspector and a cluster of others by the gate. Andrew was perched on the bonnet of a tractor parked dead centre in the field. It was a mad but valorous sight: the warrior-farmer defending his land against an aggressor armed with plans, statistics and lust for profit.

The first shock over, Agnes snapped to attention. ‘Get him up on the tractor, Jed. That’s the shot to finish.’

Bel muttered, ‘I thought it was Londoners who were supposed to be mad.’

On his tractor podium, Andrew cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted to the inspector and his team. ‘This is to remind you that this land does not belong to you.’

Agnes, Bel and Jed joined the planning inquiry group by the gate.

‘The man’s a lunatic,’ Agnes overheard one woman say. ‘He nearly killed one of us driving that thing. He could be charged.’

The inspector now conferred with Arcadian Villages’ architect, who looked mortified. Indeed, the only person present who appeared happy was the press photographer from the local paper who clicked away with a grin on his face that said front page.

Andrew had orchestrated his demonstration with some sophistication, and chosen his position with care. The tractor was parked so that the doomed oaks and the fields beyond were in the line of vision of the photographers. He cupped his hands and bellowed, ‘Are you going to join me, Jim?’

‘Sure,’ answered Jim, who had driven up from Exbury. He pushed his way through the spectators into the field. ‘I’m with you, boy’

At this point, the press officer for Arcadian Villages took the inspector aside and talked furiously at him. Agnes tapped Jed on the arm. Jed’s camera swung around – an eye that accosted the inspector when he looked up. He adjusted his ill-chosen glasses and moved away.

Another man joined Andrew and Jim and took up position, arms folded, by the tractor wheels. Agnes sketched a frame in the air. ‘Go in tight, Jed.’ Then, ‘Jed, I’m going to be sick!’ and she fled towards the oaks where she retched up her breakfast. The bout over, she leaned on a trunk for support. A dozen or so pairs of eyes observed her with interest, as she fumbled for a tissue and levered herself upright.

Jed hightailed over. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Sure. It’s the smoke. Where’s Bel?’ Agnes pressed a hand to her stomach.

‘She’s talking to the photographer. Apparently most of Exbury is on its way over. I think your friend did some telephoning before he set about burning the county.’

‘I expect he did.’ Hoping she did not smell too awful, Agnes scraped her hair back from her forehead. ‘We ought to be out there with him.’

The bonfire nearest to the inspector collapsed, sending up an additional plume of smoke. The solid rank of spectators sprouted gaps and the inspector ordered the architect to summon the fire brigade.

Penny, who had been rung by Jim and had got herself over to the farm fast, leaving a furious Bob, arrived as the crew from the local television station also pitched up with their van, together with a hard-core group of anti-Arcadian Villages protestors carrying placards.

Agnes,’ Jed grabbed her arm. ‘Take a look at the old chap.’

‘Oh…’ Dressed in a tweed jacket and tie, with his trousers hauled up high, a major-general figure stood to attention and saluted the protestors.

The bonfires had been expertly constructed and burned for another good half-hour while television crews, the local press, protestors and the planning-inquiry team got in each other’s way. Yet in the end even Andrew’s skill could not prevent their metamorphosis into carbon and hot ash. He descended from the tractor and Jim and he set about extinguishing the remnants with the water he had ferried up during the night.

Bile. Ash. Anger.

Agnes abandoned Jed and picked her way over to Andrew. Obviously exhausted and somewhat wary, he watched her approach.

Sweat beaded Agnes’s upper lip. ‘They don’t like it one bit.’

‘Did you get it on film?’

She nodded. ‘We did.’

The field emptied untidily. Protestors dismantled their banners. The television crew packed up their equipment. The inspector was decanted into his car and driven away. Arcadian’s press officer sat in his parked car talking into his mobile phone.