The rest of the country was in an electric state of flux, one he could see stabilising in a year or two. He had wondered on odd occasions if he could manage the transition, too. Start to make a permanent home, stick to ordinary cases, earn regular money. There was just so much of the past which would have to be laid to rest first.

Whistles and shouts floated down from the back of the chalet row, the estate kids' twenty-four-hour football game in full swing. Up towards Edith Weston, bright, colourful sails of windsurfers whizzed about energetically. The county canoe team was out in force, enthusiastically working themselves into a collective heat stroke as their podgy coach screamed abuse at them through a bullhorn. Hire-boats full of amateur fishermen and their expensive tackle drifted idly in the breeze.

Greg hadn't quite nodded off when he heard the car approaching. Eleanor raised herself on to her elbows, and pushed her sunglasses up, frowning.

"Now that is unreal," she murmured.

Greg agreed. The car was old, a nineteen-fifties vintage Silver Shadow, its classic, fabulously stylish lines inspiring instant envy. The kind of fanatical devotion invested in both its design and assembly were long-faded memories now, a lost heritage.

Astonishingly, it still used the original combustion engine with a recombiner cell grafted on, allowing it to burn petrol. Two pressure spheres stored its exhaust gas below the chassis, ready for converting back into liquid hydrocarbon when the cell was plugged into a power source. The system was ludicrously expensive.

He watched in bemused silence as it drew up outside the chalet, shaming his two-door electric Fiat Austin Duo. Out of the corner of his eye he could see his neighbours staring in silence at the majestic apparition. Even the football game had stopped.

Given the car, the driver came as no surprise; he was decked out in a stiff grey-brown chauffeur's uniform, complete with peaked cap.

He didn't bother with the front door, walking round Greg's vegetable patch to the patio, scattering scrawny chickens in his wake. The way he walked gave him the authority. Easy powerful strides, backed up by wide powerful shoulders and a deep chest. He was young, mid-twenties, confident and alert.

He looked round curiously as he approached. Greg sympathised, the little estate had begun to resemble a sort of upmarket hippie commune. Shambolic.

Eleanor wrapped a towel around her breasts, knotting it at the side. Greg climbed to his feet, wearily.

The chauffeur gave Eleanor a courteous little half-bow, eyes lingering. He caught himself and turned self-consciously to Greg. "Mr. Mandel?"

"Yes."

"My employer would like to interview you for a job."

"I have a phone."

"He would like to do it in person, and today."

"What sort of job?"

"I have no idea." The chauffeur reached inside his jacket and pulled out an envelope. "This is for your time." It was two thousand pounds New Sterling, in brand-new fifties.