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to me about it at all, they would fill a page. But the satisfaction of his mood was too deep to be affected by petty annoyances.
     
    The lift was packed. Paul found himself thigh to thigh with a middle-aged woman from Accounts. Joy Lindley, on the other side of the lift, smiled at him. As they walked towards the Underground she was a step or two behind him, and he stopped to let her catch up.
    ‘It was very nice of you, Mr Vane. Not telling Mr Hartford about the memo.’
    ‘Think nothing of it.’ He asked questions and found out that she lived in Highgate with her family, that her mother had had an operation and was more or less an invalid, and that she would have liked to go to University but didn’t get good enough grades. ‘I’m pretty stupid.’
    ‘Nonsense. You wouldn’t have lasted a week in Brian Hartford’s office if you were stupid.’ The presence of this long-legged filly cantering by his side made him feel youthful and frisky. At the Underground entrance he said, ‘Come and have a drink with me. Just a quick one.’
    Suddenly, unexpectedly, she put out her tongue at him, said ‘Ask me tomorrow,’ waved, and walked across the street. He was delighted. Later the wheels of the train rattled out words he had heard before: Vane Vane, off again. Not really, he told himself, I won’t say another word to the little minx.
     
    The place was just off the M4 near Datchet, a rambling Victorian country house approached by a winding drive of copper beeches. The evening was chilly, and no patients were in the grounds. Hartford went up to the first floor, spoke to the Sister on duty.
    ‘Good evening, Mr Hartford. Not quite so well today, I’m afraid. But we have our ups and downs.’
    ‘Yes.’ His lips were pressed thinner than usual as he walked down the corridor. The card on the door said Mrs Ellen Hartford. It was yellow, not white. His wife had been here for eight years.
    She sat at a table by the window. From the door her profile looked like that of the girl he had married. It was not until you were close that the puffy cheeks and slack mouth became obvious. Her eyes were like dead cornflowers. They looked at Hartford without appearing to see him. He spoke her name, kissed her cheek. She brushed the cheek as though a fly had touched her, then made a gesture towards the gardens.
    ‘Nobody out there now.’
    ‘No. It’s fairly cold.’
    ‘But they’ve been there.’
    ‘You haven’t been out yourself today?’
    ‘They’ve been watching me. All the afternoon. Two of them, on patrol, up and down. Waiting to get in. Over that balcony.’ She made a gesture at the balcony outside her window. ‘But I have to watch, and I can’t watch all the time. I must get some sleep.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘I want the balcony taken away. Knocked down. So that I’m safe.’
    He knew that it was foolish to argue, although for a long time he had tried to do so. Now he was silent. Her hands twined and retwined, a sure sign that she was more than usually disturbed.
    ‘Have you got anything?’
    He drew from his pocket a half-pound block of chocolate. She broke off a piece, ate it greedily. ‘They’re trying to starve me here. Nothing to eat today since breakfast, you’re not to say I’m lying, it’s true.’ She put a hand up to her eyes as though afraid of being hit. ‘I don’t like it here, I want to go back to Bayley.’
    Bayley was the village where they had lived before the accident. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I said I’ll see. We’ll talk about it again.’ He knew that in half an hour she would have forgotten the conversation.
    ‘They may try to stop me, but I’ve made plans. Not silly ones. Shall I tell you about them? You’re not listening.’
    ‘I am.’
    ‘I shan’t tell you. Only that I’ve got a helper here. Somebody who is truly helpful. Or it seems she is. Only one thing that’s wrong, it worries me. At some time or other she has offended God. She bears the mark. Do