‘Strong. I am becoming an addict. By the way, when I phoned, you said some money had come. Did you say it was from your ex-wife?’

‘Yes. She wasn’t party to the arrangement Sir Harry made, and probably felt, now that her husband was dead, that she should make amends.’

‘I hope it is enough to keep you going.’

‘Let’s just say it’s a substantial sum. I’m sure the grant will be resumed now that Sir Harry’s gone to bankers’ heaven. Can you imagine what that would be like? Verdi at full blast day and night for the tone deaf, grouse season twelve months a year, Krug coming out of the celestial taps, the angels all pole dancers or rent boys, Lucifer dressed as Matron dispensing the cod liver oil, fishcakes served at every meal. Do you know, Melinda, Flann O’Brien wrote a book in which the characters refused to obey the author and took over the story. Does it strike a chord? The bankers took over the lunatic asylum. Flann O’Brien was that rare thing, a seer.’

He stares out across the water, contemplating, she imagines, the qualities of a seer, some of which he, too, possesses.

‘Your Mr Barnecutt was suing them, wasn’t he?’

‘I’ve called off the dogs of war pro tem. Barnecutt has administered a few whacks, and now we wait to see the outcome. Barnecutt is not as optimistic as I am, but then he doesn’t know Fleur. She has the traditional heart of gold. I managed her career for a few years and she won’t forget.’

‘And your Thomas the Tank Engine has been doing well.’

‘Yes, the tide is running in my favour at the moment.’

‘Right, lovely to see you, Mr MacCleod. And thanks for the coffee: I’m buzzing.’

‘What you need is sex and plenty of it, Melinda. Sex is the life force.’

‘Oh, OK. I’ll see what I can do.’

She drives along the coast to the lighthouse and Smugglers’ Cove, where she interviews a local café owner, two landladies and the proprietor of the pitch and putt course. They are all agreed that sewage on the beaches would put off the tourists. Tourist numbers bound to fall in sewage scandal, say local shopkeepers and hoteliers. Outrage at cuts in spending . . . .

Is sex the life force? She thinks that older people still see sex as something religious, something extraordinary and precious, definitely more than recreation, which it was at college – most of the time.

From a lay-by, watched by two Friesian cows with curiously innocent faces, like babies trying to get objects into focus, she calls Alan39.

‘Yes.’

‘Melissa here.’

‘Yes?’

‘Please send the items.’

‘OK.’