By mid-morning on Tuesday, the crisis was full-blown. None of the banks had shown any interest in putting together a rescue package and the share price was on the slide. Worse, Legatt’s, the rival firm, had sniffed what was in the wind and was hovering, ready to launch a hostile takeover bid.

Harold was white to the gills and shaking. Julian took pity on him. ‘This won’t be your last crisis, or your worst.’

Harold closed his eyes for a second. ‘If you say so.’

They were standing together by the office window, overlooking the clogged street below. Julian punched the younger man’s shoulder gently. ‘Use your wits to think up something, but don’t worry too much. The Somerset deal might come through.’

He knew, and Harold knew, that it was touch and go.

Much depended on the Somerset deal, and on Wednesday morning Julian helicoptered down to the area. It was land owned by a farmer who, as soon as the subsidies came in from Europe, had abandoned mixed farming in favour of turning specialist cereal grower. But his profits had been eaten into by the variety of diseases that tend to attack monocultures and, despite huge applications of pesticide, the farm had failed to thrive. Now, the soil was dead and the farmer wanted out, to retire to France.

Julian walked the bare fields, the dry chalky soil crumbling under his feet. It offered the sort of opportunity on which Portcullis thrived, and Julian returned to London feeling marginally more positive, especially as the share price had steadied.

He returned to the Barbican in the late summer twilight, in the cusp before the razzle of lights took over from the dusk, through a city rattling with discarded polystyrene, and clotted with commuters.

The following morning a phone call from Harold woke him at seven thirty. ‘Legatt’s have launched their bid,’ he reported.

Julian swiped a finger across his throat. ‘That’s that, then.’

23

Some people reckoned their fifteen minutes of fame was their due and, if he ever thought about it, Andrew imagined he could be one of them. Yet when faced with notoriety, he discovered it was a dangerous thing. Too close to the bone of exposure. He did not like the questions it made him ask himself, and he hated the reminder that he was fraudulent and might be exposed as such.

After pictures and a report of his fiery protest appeared in the local press, he was besieged by the media and by phone calls. From being a case that had been virtually ignored, it now excited local interest, with supporters and detractors hurling insults at each other on the letters page of the Exbury Herald. A regional television company arrived to film the field of charred circles with Andrew and the Gladiator, who had hastened down from Croydon declaring that he would waive his fee for the sake of some action.

It was the lovely, somnolent moment of high summer. In the daytime, the calves slept, hidden by the grass in the meadows, their secret couches betrayed only by their flapping ears. In the evenings, the cows, weighed down by milk, soaked up the evening sun while their offspring, tails at full mast, capered in gangs.

The idyllic pastoral scene whipped up the film crew into excitement, and they responded with the delight, reverence even, usually aroused by great artefacts. They could not believe how perfect it was, they told Andrew, how marvellous, how picturesque. And they regarded him with the quizzical gaze of travellers in a foreign land.

‘I am proud of my farm.’ Andrew permitted himself a rare moment of satisfaction.

He looked out of the window. With their summer foliage, the oaks made a stately clump. If Stone got his way, they would be the first to go under the bulldozer. His mouth tightened.

Enough. The tasks for the day needing checking. Flora and Gudrun were due at the abattoir. Afterwards there was hay and sugar beet to pick up from Exbury, then the orders for the meat delivery to be worked out.

Before he could get going, Penny rang. ‘Listen, love, there’s a story being put about that you’re burning carcasses illegally.’

‘You know me better than that.’

‘I do. But they don’t.’

He glanced at his opened post. ‘I’ve had a letter from the Meat Marketing boys. They want to inspect the farm.’

Andrew, that’s no coincidence.’ Penny sounded troubled. ‘There’s something going on. Stone wants the money, and us off the land, and he’s using tactics. You wouldn’t listen because you’re too stubborn. But it’s true.’

Penny was probably right. She had an ear to the ground and a practicality that enabled her to put two and two together and reach the correct conclusion.

‘I wish I was there to defend you.’

He cocked his inner ear. If he was not mistaken, Penny was angling for an opening. To come back? The thought made him recoil. The shock waves from her departure had ebbed, and he had moved on in all sorts of surprising ways. Penny had chosen how it was to be and they had all better get on with it.

‘Good Lord,’ he said. The sound of his own laughter was increasingly foreign to Andrew but Penny’s stout defence struck him as funny. ‘I’d better warn Bob.’

He wished he had kept his mouth shut. With a little gasping sigh, Penny said, ‘I suppose I deserved that.’

Bea waited up for Agnes, who returned to Flagge House in the late evening from a London trip. Maud was having an early night, she explained, adding, ‘So should you be, but I’m afraid you’re due a visitor.’

‘Who?’ Agnes dumped her rucksack on the table in the hall. In the evening sun, the glass ship lamp on the table glittered and rode through the crystal water.

‘Andrew Kelsey. He was most insistent. He said that he wanted to ask you a question.’ Bea looked puzzled. ‘Does that make sense, dear?’

‘Oh, yes, it makes sense,’ said Agnes. To her horror, she felt tears spring into her eyes.

‘Agnes, dear,’ Bea looked concerned, ‘you must stop this at once. It won’t do in your condition.’ Agnes gave a visible start. ‘I am told, but I agree I don’t have firsthand experience, that it is not a good thing to get upset while having a baby.’

Agnes was forced to lean on the table. ‘How long have you known? Does Maud know?’

‘No, dear, she doesn’t. But you’ve had a funny white look about your lips. Very tell-tale. Could I say…’ Bea was hugging the news as a personal affirmation of joy ‘… I’m so excited, and I’m so glad you haven’t got rid of it. I was rather frightened – well, I said a little prayer. But it is bad timing. Babies always happen when one least wants them. Or when one thinks that’s the case.’

‘Good God,’ said Agnes. ‘I should have talked to you earlier.’

‘You could get rid of it,’ Bea was handling this delicate topic with the fluency of the worldly woman she was not, ‘but you might end up living with a ghost.’

‘Goodness,’ was all Agnes could think of to say. ‘I had no idea you had views on this subject. Aren’t you shocked or upset?’

‘Don’t be silly, Agnes. We’re not living in the Stone Age. Everyone welcomes the future generation.’ She placed a small, dry hand on Agnes’s shoulder, indicating that she forgave the younger woman’s patronizing tone. ‘Goodness is such a funny thing, isn’t it? In my day, goodness meant you gave your baby away if you were unmarried. Now you can be unmarried, have a dozen babies, keep them and be considered a woman of principle.’

That made Agnes laugh.

Bea looked very earnest. ‘Things have changed. Your generation is freer than we were. I expect that makes it harder.’

Agnes reached out her hand and touched the ship’s crystal sail. ‘If I need my head put in order I must remember to come and consult you.’

She went out on to the terrace and settled in one of the rusting iron chairs to prepare for Andrew’s arrival. It was hot, with just a hint of thunder to the north. Then, as the static settled, the sky cleared and darkened and the stars began to make their appearance. A large August moon bellied up into the sky. The shadows over the water-meadow deepened, dimmed and vanished.

Once upon a time, a posse of men – for it would have been men – among them a Campion, rode into the village. They saw the potential of this site, struck the first spade into the earth and built the house. They had taken wives, had children, added wings, demolished others and, for a time, thrived. Unlike Agnes, they had not imagined that time and money were finite.

When Andrew stepped through the window, Agnes was sitting quietly, with a glass of water in her hand, staring over the water-meadow. ‘Hallo, Andrew,’ she said.

He walked across and raised her hand to his cheek, awkwardly but with a fervour that touched her. ‘Here,’ he said, and shoved a bag on to Agnes’s lap. ‘Honey this time.’

She exclaimed in delight. ‘From your bees, I take it?’ She kissed him back. He smelt of sunburn, straw and feed. ‘I put a bottle of white in the fridge. I’ll get it.’

When Agnes returned, Andrew had settled himself on the top step of the terrace and she dropped down beside him. The stone was warm and flaky dry. Andrew was hot from his drive and the sun had tanned his face and a deep V beneath his neck.

‘Any news?’ she asked.

‘Good and bad. The anti-Arcadian lobby is growing in Exbury, and they’ve been forced into having a public meeting to try to show how much they’re going to contribute to the town. It’s delayed the results of the inquiry. The bad is that Arcadian are thinking of funding a sports centre as a trade-off.’

Silently she filled his glass.

He rolled it between his fingers and put it down on the step. ‘I can’t stay very long, but I think you know why I’m here.’ There was no point in pretending and Agnes nodded. ‘I’m not very good at this sort of thing or with words but I wanted to stake my claim… if you’ll have me.’