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the post office, only to discover that Gibson hadn’t posted any letter there for some time, and had then called in at the cottage to see if Edward had found anything interesting among his brother’s papers.
    â€˜He’d been trying to ring me at the station. He’d only just come across the pad.’
    â€˜Well, what about it, Vic?’ Billy sensed that his old pal was enjoying drawing the story out. There’d better be a good punchline, he thought irritably. ‘Who was he writing to?’
    â€˜The commissioner of Scotland Yard!’
    There was a long pause.
    â€˜Crikey!’ Billy breathed out the word. He was dumbstruck.
    â€˜And that’s not all. He starts off by apologizing, saying how sorry he is to bother such a busy man, et cetera – this is Ozzie all over – but he’s trying to get in touch with someone who worked at the Yard a long time ago and he wonders whether they might have knowledge of his whereabouts . . .’
    â€˜Yes, but who was it, for Christ’s sake?’ Billy’s patience had run out.
    â€˜I thought you’d never ask. It turns out to be a bloke we both worked with. But you knew him a whole lot better than me.’
    Vic chuckled.
    â€˜Does the name Madden ring a bell?’

3
    M ADDEN FILLED IN THE last form, signed it and then added it to a stack of papers, which he handed to George Burrows, his farm manager, who was standing beside him, looking over his shoulder.
    â€˜That’s done,’ he announced. ‘You can send them off.’
    â€˜There’s nothing but paperwork with this lot,’ Burrows grumbled. ‘They’ve got a form for everything.’
    â€˜Yes, but we mustn’t complain.’ Madden eased a stiff muscle in his back. ‘Not when we’re being treated like royalty.’
    The word was one his wife had used, not without a touch of envy. Helen was a GP, the village doctor, and while a new National Health Scheme was in the wings, it was yet to pass through Parliament and no one knew how well it would work out for either patients or physicians. Farmers, on the other hand, were already the anointed (another of Helen’s words). Under the terms of the recently passed Agricultural Act, they had acquired fresh status. Needing to feed the population while keeping down costly food imports, the new Labour government had acted to increase domestic production, promising farmers guaranteed prices and assured markets for most of their produce and, where necessary, showering them with subsidies.
    â€˜Royalty?’ Burrows sampled the word suspiciously. ‘Aye,well, I’ll believe it when I see it.’ His face brightened. ‘I’ve got the accounts for you to look at, sir. It’s been a decent year.’
    â€˜Let’s leave them till tomorrow, George.’ Madden stretched. ‘I should be getting home.’
    With the last of the autumn ploughing just completed – the tractor had been busy until well into the afternoon – it had been a long day, but when they left the cobbled farmyard by its arched entrance Madden was able to feast his eyes on a broad vista of freshly turned soil stretching all the way to the stream at the bottom of his land, which ran the length of the valley and was overlooked by a long, wooded ridge called Upton Hanger. As he paused to take in the view he caught sight of the swaying backs of his dairy herd as they made their slow way up from the unploughed fields on a sunken track towards the cowshed for milking. The sound of a horse’s hooves mingled with the squeak of wheels interrupted his reverie. He turned to see Fred Thorp, one of his farmhands, exiting the yard in a dog-cart loaded with bulging sacks.
    â€˜I’m delivering these vegetables to Mr Dobie,’ he announced. Horace Dobie was the village grocer. ‘I can give you a ride home, sir.’
    â€˜Thanks, Fred, but I have to water Mr Sinclair’s roses. And I