‘Oh, yes. No doubt about it. His irrigation system is still one of the finest in the country. Y ou know what people said about him – he could grow wheat on a parking lot. But he relied too much on his personality, and on scratching people’s backs, and having his own back scratched in return. The day he died, the financial future of this farm was hanging by a thread. That’s why the bank needed to talk to Michael the night before his funeral.’

‘Are you trying to say that your father killed his own son?’

‘Mother, don’t talk nonsense. Michael died because of a terrible and tragic accident.’

‘But that’s what you’re saying isn’t it?’ his mother insisted. ‘If the farm had been financially stable, Michael wouldn’t have had to drive into Wichita. If your father hadn’t over-spent and mis-managed the farm, Michael could still be alive.’

‘Mother, for God’s sake, you can’t talk like that.’

The old woman stood up straight. ‘This is my house. I can talk how I like.’

There was a pause, and then a quiet, firm voice said, ‘No, Ursula. This isn’t your house. Not any more. And if you want to be welcome in it, you’re going to have to keep a check on those irrational outbursts of yours.’

Season was standing at the far end of the corridor, by the door of the master bedroom, in a long lacey negligee. Mrs Hardesty touched her forehead with her fingertips as if she felt a sudden twinge of headache, and then abruptly turned and walked back to her bedroom, without a word. Season stayed where she was, waiting for Ed to say something.

‘I’m going into Wichita tomorrow to see Dr Benson,’ Ed said. ‘If I’m going to press for extra compensation, I think I’m going to have to get myself all the technical information I can lay my hands on.’

‘Of course,’ said Season. There was an odd, slightly challenging note in the way she said it.

‘Do you want to come with me?’ he asked her. ‘You could do some shopping at the civic centre.’

‘It depends what time you go,’ she said. ‘I’m catching an eleven o’clock flight to Los Angeles from Wichita Mid-Continent Airport’

‘Season?’ he said, quite urgently; but she had already gone back into the bedroom, and closed the door.

‘Season?’ he repeated, knowing that she couldn’t hear him.

Five

Senator Jones walked back into his lavish Moroccan-style living-room, with its multi-coloured mosaic tiles and its North African draperies and its elaborate brass-topped tables and stood silent for a moment, lighting up a cigar.

‘Well?’ asked the red-headed girl in the silky emerald-green wrap, stretching herself out on the ottoman sofa.

‘Well what?’ said Senator Jones, as he pup-pup-pupped his Havana into life.