Roger's face made a lunge for opacity and inscrutability, then reverted to its habitual transparency. "Well, let's hope so," he growled. “Tommy's on the case, at any rate. He'll sort it out."

"He's clever, Tommy, isn't he?"

“Very. And Hugo's not."

"Of course he is — he went to Oxford."

"Because I got him in. My old college." He regarded me fiercely. "I knew the master. Oh, he's not stupid and he works hard, but he's weak."

"You mean kind."

"I mean weak."

I stared. "Well, what's that got to do with anything anyway? I mean—"

"We're talking about stopping sewage leaks, pollution, and that is reliant upon solid infrastructure, something Hugo knows nothing about. At least I did engineering. He did theology."

I swallowed. "Yes, OK. But Hugo has very good directors. Engineers, even, who know—"

"Lining their own pockets. Like all shareholders do. Wouldn't have happened in my day." I could see he was angry suddenly. "Living in London – why isn't he down here? Where it all began? In Cornwall?"

"But Bellingdon contracts all over the country now. Even in the Home Counties. So London makes sense."

“Makes no sense. You need to be by the coast, hands on. Near the filtration pumps, the underground tanks, the pipelines. Not in some ivory tower in Hampstead."

"But he's expanding the company, surely?"

“There's no sense in over-expansion. Not when you can't see what's happening. Yes, he's got sewage filtration contracts with Buckinghamshire, with Thames Water even, and there's no doubt he's enlarged it, but he's lost sight of it. He'll filter the crap out of anyone's water. Wrong. Misguided. You know what his philosophy is?" His fists were clenched and his face grew red.

"What?"

Roger got to his feet. "We take crap from anyone."

I gazed at him. “That's not true."

"It is true. And since we're dealing in myths and untruths, the reason he left Cornwall was not to be near the London and Home Counties contractors, and you know it, Flora." He burned me with his bright blue eyes.

"He's never loved it here," I murmured. "Not like you and me. Not like Babs, Iris, Mum—"

"No, he prefers the London life. Drinks parties in Chelsea. Hobnobbing with wealthy, shareholders."

“Sharing ideas," I countered. "New methods of technology, innovative projects."

"All of that can happen anywhere in the country," he told me angrily, parroting someone I'd heard very recently. “That's just Hugo's party line for running an essentially Cornish company from London. But the main reason he left Cornwall, as you and I know, Flora, was not that." His eyes blazed. "It was to get away from his mother."