He’d got Tony Eastaugh to visit him. When Ron snapped his fingers, that old crook knew to come running. Sometimes the deeds you had done and the debts you were owed still counted. Tony had forgotten much else, but he knew not to cross Ronald E. Grimes JP. Ron had known Tony would have the photo. He just had to play nice for that old pervert, sweet-talk him into finding it. Tony’d gone into his album collection and pulled out the photo first go. Of course he did. Never know your luck when you stick your hand into a dark place. Eh, Tony?

Chester, said the caption, and the exact date. Why had these men recorded meaningless events so assiduously? Ron couldn’t imagine why any of them had ever thought these memories would one day assume any importance. Like Tony, like all of them, his entire life had been an exercise in sorting, separating and categorising rubbish that would all be thrown in one big pile into the one incinerator. The world had gone mad—nobody valued anything anymore except dirt and land, dirty land.

What an idiot, Ron thought as his eye settled on his son in the photograph. Good job Ronald Grimes was not a quitter. The one job he’d been dying to walk out on was as a family man. But he’d stuck at it. Chester. Did he really want to go back there? What if the place reminded him of things he’d rather forget? He’d have no choice but to live through them again.

Gordon—it wasn’t the disappointment; it was the loneliness. A son should be the one person in the world you could talk to. No, he’d never got over it. He and that boy were lonely. Bugger this life. The only person who really grasped the truth was himself. Pity he wasn’t better company.

Such thoughts acted like a warm bath on his mood. He gazed down on the photo. How he loved those hydroelectric dams. They were the only reason for going on holidays: the wonder of engineering. Marvellous. A reason to live: the ingenuity of mankind in the cosmic void. There was him standing proudly by the dam, as if he was the owner. A crease ironed into his shorts.

Hang on. That wasn’t him. Oh bugger, of course, this was ’79. That’s right. That bleak sad season. The mourning after.

He had a solution. A fix for his problems and the boy’s. He could be Ronald E. Grimes JP again, man of influence. He would have their respect. He would pull them all out of the fire. They would need him again.

He just had to keep it in his head.