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procedures discreetly and asked for my instructions, and I felt the quicksand rising above my knees.
    “Is it legal,” I asked, “for this business to go on running, for the time being?”
    They saw no impediment in law. Subject to probate, and in the absence of any later will, the business would be mine. If I wanted to sell it in due course, it would be in my own interest to keep it running. As my brother’s executor it would also be my duty to do my best for the estate. An interesting situation, they said with humor.
    Not wholeheartedly appreciating the subtlety, I asked how long probate would take.
    Always difficult to forecast, was the answer. Anything between six months or two years, depending on the complexity of Greville’s affairs.
    “Two years!”
    More probably six months, they murmured soothingly. The speed would depend on the accountants and the Inland Revenue, who could seldom be hurried. It was in the lap of the gods.
    I mentioned that there might be work to do over claiming damages for the accident. Happy to see to it, they said, and promised to contact the Ipswich police. Meanwhile, good luck.
    I put the receiver down in sinking dismay. This business like any other, might run on its own impetus for two weeks, maybe even for four, but after that ... After that I would be back on horses, trying to get fit again to race.
    I would have to get a manager, I thought vaguely, and had no idea where to start looking. Annette Adams with furrows of anxiety across her forehead asked if it would be all right to begin clearing up Mr. Franklin’s office, and I said yes, and thought that her lack of drive could sink the ship.
    Please would someone, I asked the world in general, mind going down to the yard and telling the man in my car that I wouldn’t be leaving for two or three hours; and June with her bright face whisked out of the door again and soon returned to relate that my man would lock the car, go on foot for lunch, and be back in good time to wait for me.
    “Did he say all that?” I asked curiously.
    June laughed. “Actually he said, ‘Right. Bite to eat,’ and off he stomped.”
    She asked if I would like her to bring me a sandwich when she went out for her own lunch and, surprised and grateful, I accepted.
    “Your foot hurts, doesn’t it?” she said judiciously.
    “Mm.”
    “You should put it up on a chair.”
    She fetched one without ado and placed it in front of me, watching with a motherly air of approval as I lifted my leg into place. She must have been all of twenty, I thought.
    A telephone rang beside the computer on the far side of the room and she went to answer it.
    “Yes, sir, we have everything in stock. Yes, sir, what size and how many? A hundred twelve-by-ten-millimeter ovals ... yes ... yes ... yes.”
    She tapped the lengthy order rapidly straight onto the computer, not writing in longhand as Annette had done.
    “Yes, sir, they will go off today. Usual terms, sir, of course.” She put the phone down, printed a copy of the order and laid it in a shallow wire tray. A fax machine simultaneously clicked on and whined away and switched off with little shrieks, and she tore off the emergent sheet and tapped its information also into the computer, making a printout and putting it into the tray.
    “Do you fill all the orders the day they come in?” I asked.
    “Oh, sure, if we can. Within twenty-four hours without fail. Mr. Franklin says speed is the essence of good business. I’ve known him to stay here all evening by himself packing parcels when we’re swamped.”
    She remembered with a rush that he would never come back. It did take a bit of getting used to. Tears welled in her uncontrollably as they had earlier, and she stared at me through them, which made her blue eyes look huge.
    “You couldn’t help liking him,” she said. “Working with him, I mean.”
    I felt almost jealous that she’d known Greville better than I had; yet I could have known him better if I’d tried.