“Who’s this?” Unmistakably Darren.

“It’s Andy. How are you? I just—”

“Who?”

“Andy.” There was the longest pause. “Can you hear me, Darren? It’s Andy. I know it’s late but—”

“You’ve got the wrong number.”

“No, I—” But he was gone.

The site office was in the same place, but the mobiles had been replaced by a smart brick building. I stood outside watching through the window as a woman I didn’t recognize answered the phone and tapped away at a computer, the sting I’d felt for weeks after Darren hung up on me warming my cheeks. In the end, I forced myself through the doors and asked for him. The receptionist was in her late twenties with ironed hair and bracelets that jangled against the keyboard.

“Mr. Fisher isn’t here.”

“When’s he back?”

“I mean he doesn’t come in anymore. He retired. Two, three years ago, I think.”

“And Marcus?” Marcus had gone to see a supplier in Devizes. He might be back after lunch.

“Is it business? Can I take a message?”

“No. I used to work here. Just came by to say hello. Well, there is something. Where can I find Darren? Is he still—” And I gave Darren’s last address. She shook her head. It took a bit of doing to get her to tell me where he was. I labored how good Darren had been to me, how he’d given me my start. It was funny, now that I thought about it. The interest Darren had taken, the support he’d offered to his nephew’s scrap of a girlfriend.

“He’s not been well,” she said. “He’s … well, he’s in a home.”

“But he’s only sixty-five!” She didn’t have anything to say to that. “Where is it then?”

“It’s a new place. Well, not exactly. You know the old manor, out by the new golf course? It was redeveloped a few years ago and it’s a residential home now. Not by us. Mr. Fisher wouldn’t put in a bid, Marcus, that is. Not Darren. He was already…”

“Right.” I walked to the door, then walked back. I wrote down my number. “Give this to Marcus. Tell him Andy came by. Tell him I need to talk to him.”

“Andy?”

“Andy.”

It was dry again, the clouds a vast white wall. I had nothing else to do, so I walked there, taking the Ridgeway as I had so often in the past. The track was muddy and rutted by dirt bikes, the puddles chalky so you couldn’t tell their depth. For a time, I forgot where I was going and why, losing myself in picking a path forward, here and there climbing up the slippery grassy banks to avoid soaking my shoes. There was hardly a breeze.

Reaching the ridge, I passed the copse I had always known to myself as Crow Wood. The trees were in leaf and on their branches the black birds were tied like bows.