‘I think she wants you to go,’ said Charles apologetically. Hutchins turned and went down the ladder. June Veeber stood for a moment looking from one to the other. Then she said to Betty, ‘You really mustn’t worry, my dear. I shan’t make a pass at him.’

‘Why not?’ Betty asked. ‘He wears trousers, doesn’t he?’

They faced each other. The contrast between them was an unforgettable sight: one gaunt, unkempt, trousered, ready to scratch or bite at the drop of a hat, the other sleek, feminine, a purring dynamo with any number of lethal jolts in reserve. Charles felt sorry for Hutchins, sorry for Froulish, and—some­how, obscurely—sorry for himself. Was he really safe? Could he go on standing where they had fallen?

June Veeber got her feet on the ladder and began to climb down it. When she was hidden from the waist down, her breasts seemed unusually pronounced as they jutted above the floor level. Betty bent down so that their faces were close together.

‘I’ve kept my hands off you this time,’ she said. ‘But don’t come back here bringing trouble. I wouldn’t know where to store it.’

Without answering the visitor left them.

It was October. The first high wind had filled the gutters with yellow leaves, and it was dusk as Charles pushed his cart home­wards that afternoon. His mind still full of Betty’s outburst, he wondered whether it would have blown over or whether the atmosphere in the loft would still be tense when he got there; and, being tired, decided to fortify himself with a cup of tea.

‘Harry’s Snacks’ was open. He parked the handcart in the pool of light outside the front window, and went in. Collecting his chipped mug of dark brown swill from the counter, he sat down at the nearest table, heavily, loosely, tired and indifferent to his surroundings. The place was nearly empty.

‘Wud that be yoor cart outside?’

The flat Lancashire voice startled him. A thick-set, short man in a cap and muffler, his fallen cheeks indicating near-toothlessness, sat in the corner nearest him.

‘Yes, that’s my cart,’ he said levelly, sustaining his character as the self-sufficient man, giving nothing away, asking for nothing. But the mere fact that he answered was enough to impart a new familiarity to the man’s tone when he spoke again.

‘Work all on your own, eh?’

‘Yes.’

‘Like it best that way?’

‘Much the best.’

‘Find it pays better, eh?’

Charles stood up, on his way to the door. ‘I said I liked it best, let’s leave it at that.’

But the stocky man was on his feet, too, with a note of urgency in his flat confidential voice.

‘Nay, nay, don’t get in a ’uff. A’ve got a perfectly sensible reason for me questions. Sit down. ’Ave another cup.’

‘I don’t want another cup.’