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trailing beard of root-hairs, black with earth. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘did I startle you?’ Three others lay on the path beside her. ‘Are you just putting those in? Isn’t it rather late?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said, in a strange, throttled voice. Her cheeks were netted with purple veins, but her eyes were vacant, large, frightened.
    ‘I don’t mean to criticize,’ he said.
    There was a silence. She stayed crouched, frozen. Thomas couldn’t fathom how he had upset her.
    ‘I’m just going to visit Alfred,’ he said. ‘The Park Keeper. Did you know he’s ill?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said, and to his horror the tears began trickling down her cheeks. ‘Don’t tell him,’ she sobbed, ‘please don’t tell him …’
    And then he realized. She wasn’t a gardener. She was just a woman stealing flowers. She was digging them up, not planting them. An oil-cloth bag was waiting to be loaded, an old woman’s bag, a poor person’s bag. And then he remembered the Asian woman, loading compost into her push-chair. They were all at it, with Alfred away.
    ‘I won’t tell him,’ he muttered. ‘But do you think – should you be doing that?’ He left her kneeling there, as if praying.
    Alfred, of course, would have sorted her out. He probably knew her, and her habits. He would have done it quietly, with no fuss. He might have taken her round to his shed at the back of the toilets for a cup of tea. Or perhaps he wouldn’t; she seemed slightly barmy. But he would have known. This is his patch. Like he knew the drinkers and the meths addicts. But he isn’t here, and there’s no one to help her, or to protect her from herself.
    The sun had slipped behind the crest of the hill, and the Park dipped slowly down towards night. Thomas sat on the bench, with his back to the pond where Asian wedding photos were taken in summer. He thought about Alfred as the light lessened, the wonderful afterglow of lemon-gold light pouring up from the horizon, drenching half the sky, imperceptibly thinning to early evening blue. Which is how it is with us, he thought. In the afterglow of the last century, when the money from the empire was used for public works … But the ideals are fading. And the cash is nearly gone.
    A large white van hove in through the gates. What was it doing? Cars were banned from the Park. A stranger waved peremptorily from the window. ‘Hoy there, you. Closing time.’ ‘All right,’ said Thomas, slightly affronted. ‘I didn’t hear the whistle blow.’ ‘There wasn’t a whistle,’ said the man, in a take-it-or-leave-it way. ‘So no one’s standing in for Alfred,’ said Thomas, partly to let the man know he was a regular, a man to be trusted, with powerful friends.
    ‘Alfred …? Oh yes,’ the man muttered. ‘No.’
    ‘What if he can’t come back for a bit?’
    ‘What if he never comes back at all?’ Thomas couldn’t see the man’s face in the gathering twilight, but his voice was almost mocking. ‘Costs a lot of money, a full-time Park Keeper.’
    Thomas said nothing. He felt cold dread.
    ‘Best get on home,’ the man shouted, officious, and the ugly van snouted off across the Park.
    Thomas walked towards the gate. That was quick, he thought. It doesn’t take long for things to disappear. I’ll ring the council tomorrow and find out what’s going on, I’ll write a letter to the local paper –
    Or I’ll be too busy, and do nothing at all.
    Besides, I’m over-reacting. Nothing will happen. Alfred’s too popular around here.
    The path snaked past the public toilets, with their faded sign, The Premises Are Under Police Surveillance. Bollocks they are, he thought. The only surveillance they got was from Alfred. As he passed, he caught a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, and turned. A man in a leather jacket was standing in the shadows. Then he spotted another, with a brutal crewcut. The van had driven straight by without seeing them.
    Up to no good, said a voice in his head. I think