‘Charlie handles the money,’ Harry said. He noticed that he’d dropped a small potato and picked it up to dry with the others. ‘You know what Vern’s like when he gets talking, but I won’t stay over there too long. I’ve got a bunch of updates to make on Vegas Local this afternoon. If you get hungry, there’s some of the strawberry-and-apple pie Charlie made yesterday in the refrigerator.’

‘I’ll have space food,’ Ed said.

‘Of course you will,’ Harry said, smirking. He grabbed a clean polo shirt out of a basket of unfolded laundry and pulled it over his muscular chest as he crossed the two hundred feet of dirt to Vern and Rosie’s place. Then he realised he’d forgotten the tomatoes he’d promised and doubled back.

‘Hey, Rosie!’ Harry said happily, taking off his boots before stepping through the insect screen over her back door.

It was one of those time-warp homes where people do a place up when they first move in, then leave everything to decay. The kitchen made Harry feel like he was on a sitcom set, with its yellowed Kenwood mixer and old-skool TV with a bulbous beige case and a plastic antenna on top. Rosie always watched a game show or nature channel, with the volume uncomfortably loud because she was going deaf.

‘I raised three boys,’ Rosie said, bringing a clanking jug of iced tea to the dining table. ‘A bit of stink won’t shock me.’

She fetched a plate of cheese and homemade-pickle sandwiches, then showed Harry new pictures of her seven- and nine-year-old granddaughters on her tablet.

‘The younger one looks a lot like you,’ Harry said, noticing dirt packed under his nails as he bit a sandwich.

‘Her father just got redeployed to become a flight-deck technician on the USS Gerald Ford,’ Rosie said proudly. ‘I helped design the electromagnetic catapults on that boat.’

‘Really?’ Harry said, surprised.

Harry saw Vern and Rosie as a couple of sweet seventy-somethings who pottered around on their farm, but they’d both been scientists at the Groom Lake research base a hundred miles north of Vegas – more commonly known as Area 51.

‘I’ve soldered up another lithium battery pack if you want it,’ Rosie said, holding her lower back and making a soft moan as she sat down.

‘That would be fabulous,’ Harry said. ‘Plenty of cold nights at this altitude and I like to keep the polytunnels above sixty degrees. We’ll have to find something to swap.’

‘We’re neighbours,’ Rosie said warmly. ‘I’m not keeping score.’

‘Charlie said you were going to show her how to make them.’