‘He waved me on,’ he said. ‘He could see the signal and he gave me the all-clear. Like this. I didn’t move at first and he did it again. See? A bit impatient, too, as much as to say: “What’s eating you? Hop to it.” Yes, well, I hopped. I’ve never liked the bridge. It’s a short stride between sleepers and you can see the creek through the gaps. Look. I’d got halfway when I heard her behind me, blowing her whistle in the tunnel. It’s funny how quick you can think. Whether to jump for it or swing from the end of a sleeper, or stand waving my arms and, if she didn’t pull up in time, dive for the engine. I thought about Questing, too, and how, if she got me, nobody’d know he gave me the office. And all the time I was hopping like a bloody ballet dancer, with the creek below clicking through the gaps. Like one of those dreams. Look, she was on the bridge when I jumped. I was above the bank by then. I suppose it wasn’t more than ten feet. I landed in a matagouri bush. Scratched all over, and look at my pants. I didn’t even try to get out of it. She rumbled over my head, and muck off the sleepers fell in my eyes. I felt funny. I mean my body felt funny, as if it didn’t belong to me. I was kind of surprised to find myself climbing the bank and it seemed to be someone else that was winded when I got to the top. And yet all the time I was hell-set on getting at Questing. And had he waited for me? He had not. ’Struth, I stood there shaking like a bloody jelly and I heard him tooting his horn away along the Peak road. I don’t know how I’d have got home if it hadn’t been for Eru Saul. Eru’d come down the hill and he saw what Questing swung across me. He’s a witness to it. He gave me a hand to come home. Look, Eru’s out there in the kitchen. You ask him. He knows.’ He turned to Mrs Claire. ‘Can I get Eru to come in, Mrs Claire?’

‘I’ll get him,’ said Simon, and went out to the kitchen. He returned, followed by Eru, who stood oafishly in the doorway. Dikon saw, for the first time, a fleshy youth dressed in a stained blue suit. His coat was open, displaying a brilliant tie, and an expanse of puce-coloured shirt stretched tight across the diaphragm. He showed little of his Maori blood, but Dikon thought he might have served as an illustration of the least admirable aspect of colonization in a native country.

‘Here, listen, Eru,’ said Smith. ‘You saw Questing swing it across me, didn’t you?’

‘Too right,’ Eru muttered.