“It’s a very worthwhile cause,” he said. “I saw it on the television when I was at my friend’s. A canal boat, which is a theatre too. It goes along the canal giving performances and the cast live on the barge. But the boat needs restoration, and the Arts Council have stopped giving them any money.”

He looked around the table. They were all staring at him: no one would help him out, no one would make the explanation easier. It was nearly high tide. The island was separated from the mainland. In the silence they could hear the waves breaking over the rocks and the slipway at the north end. He caught Jasmine’s eye and started again.

“They seemed such nice people. I phoned them up and offered to help. They were so excited and grateful. They are very young. Then I realized that I didn’t have much money left. The film made most of the money and that was a long time ago. The books don’t seem to be selling so well lately … They said that I could live with them on the boat.”

“Do I understand,” said Jasmine Carson, “ that you intend to sell the island to finance their hare-brained scheme? You are a foolish man, Charlie Todd.”

She could not have given a worse insult.

“But what about the observatory?” Nick demanded. He had lost the pose of petulant aggression. There seemed nothing to him without it. They had become so used to the act that now he was unrecognizable, without personality.

“I thought,” Charlie said hopefully, “ that the trust might like to buy the observatory. At a realistic price, of course. I wouldn’t want to be greedy, but it costs rather a lot of money to restore a canal boat.”

“My dear man.” Paul Derbyshire’s voice was shrill with impatience and unhappiness. He was a small man, thin and nervous, and now his face was red, the colour of raw meat. “ How could the trust purchase the observatory? It hasn’t the money to buy a roll of wire netting without your help.”

“I could make it a condition of sale that you stay in the observatory,” Charlie said. He felt that he was being extremely reasonable and looked with distaste and surprise at the angry, irritated faces. What a boring, unimaginative lot they were. His words seemed only to fuel the doctor’s impatience.

“We’d never be able to survive here if we had to pay rent for the buildings. Even if the landowner allowed us to retain the use of the observatory the rent would be astronomical and we could not expect to have the same unrestricted access to the trapping area. Anything might happen here. Imagine a café at the north end, caravans in the paddock, an ice-cream van on the beach. And everywhere people.”

He hesitated, imagining the horrors of the invasion of Gillibry’s privacy. He tried to calm himself and said, as reasonably as he could: “My dear Charles, you must reconsider.”