White Farm was a smallholding, and it had been a rental property for over two years. There were no animals there any more, but the barns and the outbuildings were still in a very good state of repair. The old couple who had lived there since before the War had died within a few days of each other. Their only son, a grammar-school boy they had both doted on, had emigrated to Canada in the early sixties. His education had eventually alienated him from the people who had happily bankrolled him through university, and who had eventually paid his fare out to Toronto. They had never seen him again – or met his wife, or his children, or their great-grandchildren – but they had been very proud of him, and they had cherished the Christmas cards and photos he had sent to them sporadically. When they died he had arranged his parents’ burials, and he had then arranged for the farm he had grown up on to be rented out until property prices started to rise in the UK once again. It had all been done over the phone, and, like all absentee landlords, he had no idea of who might be occupying his old homestead. The rental agents had even less interest and, for someone like Steven Golding, that was a situation he could exploit without fear of anyone ever bothering to chase him up, or even having to meet with anyone face to face. As long as the rent was paid promptly and, in his case, three months in advance, no one could give the proverbial flying fuck.

He had found all the old couple’s belongings stored in the attic; their whole lives were packed into a few boxes. A life of occasional letters and greetings cards, the haphazard affection of a son who had left them both behind as soon as he could. He had hated the son who had walked away from parents who had loved him dearly.

Steven Golding sat at the kitchen table, a big scrubbed-pine monstrosity, that was very old and very scarred. It had seen a lot of use over its lifetime, that was evident. There were people who would pay a lot of money for it, he knew that. People who had to buy other people’s lives, other people’s possessions, because they didn’t have anything of such value in their own families. It was a sad fact, but it was true.