‘How much will he need, do you think?’

‘No idea. A lot of money involved, I suppose. Maybe they can trade their way out. Who knows.’

‘We can mortgage the house if we have to,’ said Helen.

‘I could have done without all this at the moment. Jesus.’

‘When you get up there it mightn’t be as bad as it sounds.’

‘He’s been slack with things, I suppose. That’s Kevin, isn’t it? Confident and slack until it all goes wrong and then looking around for a handout. And he’d been drinking.’

‘The fire insurance thing can’t be his fault, though,’ said Helen.

‘I don’t know. I’ll get a handle on it all tomorrow, I hope. This will be all tied up with the Dunedin boat auction and his trip down. I suppose that was the last toss of the dice. At least I don’t think I have a lot of council stuff on tomorrow. Too bad anyway.’

They were too upset to go to bed immediately. Pearly went to his computer to make flight bookings, and Helen made coffee. They knew there was nothing to be done until Pearly had been to Auckland, but that didn’t stop them worrying. Pearly couldn’t settle to anything but didn’t want to keep on talking about Kevin despite being able to think of little else.

‘What time will it be in Cardiff?’ he asked.

‘About half past nine in the morning. Leanne will be at work, and you shouldn’t bother her there. And don’t you go running Kevin down to her. That’s not fair.’

‘I wasn’t going to say a thing. I just want to talk to her, that’s all. I want to hear her voice and know that everything’s okay for at least one of them. Nothing the matter with that, is there?’

‘She’ll be busy, so if you do get through don’t go on and on. You could just say that you’re going to Auckland tomorrow and will see Kevin. Don’t go on about the financial stuff until you know what’s what.’

‘Everything all okay?’ asked Leanne when he got through to the hospital. They rarely rang during the working day.

‘Fine,’ said Pearly, ‘just checking in. I’m going up to Auckland tomorrow to see Kevin. Everything fine with you?’

‘It’s raining, but that’s not unusual. I’m flat out, but that’s not unusual either. Kevin okay?’

‘It’s just some insurance hassle. You’ve time to talk? I don’t want to be a nuisance.’ The pleasure her voice gave was an almost physical flutter within him.

‘Of course you’re not,’ Leanne said.