“Run this past me again,” he said. “They’re offering you cheap accommodation in the middle of London for three months and a London bonus on your pay packet, to hang out in London, work a bit, and do whatever the hell you want, without every old lady you meet in the street asking if you wouldn’t mind looking up her bum?”

Cormac frowned. “They don’t do that.”

“Mrs. MacGonnagall does that!”

“She does, aye.” Cormac drained his pint.

“Seriously, you’re so lucky. They should do that scheme with ambulance drivers!”

“Ha, that’d be a lot of use.”

“What do you mean?”

“‘Hello, welcome to London, off you go to Oxford Street . . .’ ‘Och, aye, sorry, where would that be now?’”

Jake sighed. “Oh. Aye. Even more reason why you’d be absolutely mad not to go. The women in London, oh my God.”

“How do you know?”

Jake shrugged. “In the papers, aye?”

Cormac looked at him suspiciously, but Jake was refusing to look his way. “Have you been reading Grazia again?”

Jake sniffed. “This is the chance of a lifetime, man. Kirrinfief, it’s all right.”

In the corner, Eck’s dog let out a massive fart right next to the fire then looked around with an innocent expression on, as if it couldn’t possibly have been him.

“Uh-huh.”

“But London! On a cheap rent! Hot summers and amazing women and everything going on and famous people and stuff off the telly and that!”

“Well, I’ll be working.”

“Yeah. Looking after hot models with toe injuries from wearing really, really high heels,” said Jake sadly, who had clearly given this quite an astonishing amount of thought. “Seriously, mate. You’re insane. You’ll be back in three months. What’s going to change for you in three months?”

Cormac stared out the window. The clouds had been low today. Rain threatened for tomorrow. Being somewhere sunny with models in it suddenly seemed rather exciting.

“Plus, you know, since you got back . . .”

Cormac gave him a sharp look. “What are you saying?”

“Nothing,” said Jake hastily. You didn’t talk about Cormac leaving the army. You just didn’t. “I just mean, it’s quiet.”

Cormac looked at Lennox, who as usual wasn’t saying much. “What do you think?”

That was a pretty stupid question. Lennox had been to agricultural college, then come straight back to the farm he’d been born on. The most surprising thing Lennox had ever done was get together with the clever nerdy English girl who ran the local bookshop, and even then she’d been renting one of his farm buildings. Literally all he’d had to do was fall across the road.

Lennox shrugged. “Not for me,” he said, to absolutely nobody’s surprise.

Above the crackling fire, the old clock ticked mournfully on.