Ed said quietly, ‘I think I’m going to have to.’ Surprisingly, Della had tears in her eyes. Ed could see them sparkling in the back light from the television floods. ‘The goddamned wretched thing about it is. I’ve fallen in love with you,’ she said. That’s the goddamned wretched thing about it.’

Ed said, ‘Della—’ but she turned quickly away and walked back across the television cables, and out through the door that led to the side verandah. Ed felt tempted to follow, but he could hear that Shearson was almost finished with his introductory speech, and he knew that the television people would be calling him forward in a minute or two.

The director twisted around in his folding-chair, caught Ed’s eye, and pointed towards the place where Ed was supposed to stand. Ed nodded, and tippy-toed across the floor. As if in a dream, he could hear Shearson Jones saying ‘… and now… I want you to meet one of the farmers I’ve been talking about… one of the hardworking, strong-willed Kansas wheat growers who have had to fight against this terrible and unprecedented disaster alone and single-handed… with only their guts and their know-how to rely on…’

*

It was discovered by chance. It could have remained hidden, and nobody would ever have known, not until it was far too late. Although, by the time it was found, it was far too late anyway. The damage had been done.

The grain ship City of Belleville was docked at St Louis, Missouri, taking on a cargo of hard wheat for Europe. It was Sunday afternoon, a few minutes after five o’clock, and Ed Hardesty had already started speaking on the television. Not that the stevedores at Jefferson Docks cared very much – they were too busy on overtime, loading thousands of tons of grain from the wharfside silos into the City of Belleville’s holds. The shipment was already a week overdue and the men had been promised double time if they caught up on the lost seven days.

The ship’s first mate was a tough, bullet-headed little man from Milwaukee. His shore friends called him ‘German’. His ship friends called him ‘Square’, because of his shape. His real name was Herman Heller, a second-generation immigrant whose only surviving relative, his dotty father, now sang off-key Lieder in a Wisconsin nursing-home.

Herman Heller was standing at the ship’s rail smoking his pipe and watching the pale brown river roll by. Here in St Louis, the weather was humid and uncomfortable, and there was a dark stain of sweat down the back of Herman’s light blue T-shirt. He was thinking about a woman he knew in New Orleans – a quiet, jolly woman with a big nose who ran a delicatessen on the south side of the city. She had a husband who was confined to a wheelchair, and she didn’t ask anything of Herman but vigorous humping when he was there and suggestive letters when he wasn’t. Herman was good at suggestive letters. The woman’s blutwurst was unsurpassed.