‘I could have a go,’ Cathy says, laughing again.

‘Let’s do it,’ Tom says. ‘I’ll hold the head.’ He flops down on to the grass, sitting with his knees bent, his weight on his hands, just as he did at the baggage claim. She sits down next to him and looks at the sky above. Bluish-grey clouds are gathering. It’s going to rain again.

‘Where would you even start?’ He leans towards her. ‘Like – say, that one.’ He points to the largest one.

‘That’s a bull,’ she says.

‘How do you know?’ He laughs and looks sideways at her, and she thinks suddenly that he is goading her to say it. His smile spreads as he looks at her, that lopsided smile. ‘Horns, right?’ he says.

‘Not horns – they can both have horns.’ She leans towards him and points, making sure his eyeline is with hers. ‘No udder,’ she says, laughing.

Tom tips his head back and laughs. He lies down properly then, his bald head in the grass, and closes his eyes. ‘So you’re operating on one of those cows,’ he says. ‘Are any of them cows?’

‘Four of them are.’

‘Right. Okay. Go,’ Tom says, his hand flapping up into the air and accidentally – Cathy thinks – touching hers. Her stomach swoops again. She can’t think about anything except his slim, tanned arms. His bare feet in his trainers. The way his t-shirt is riding up again as he replaces his hands behind his head, the archetypal image of a relaxed man. She shifts closer to him. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t care about what Frannie said. She doesn’t care how she thought she should be the one to hand herself in, about how she doesn’t have anything to lose.

‘You really want to know this?’ she asks.

He opens his eyes. ‘Of course!’ he says. ‘For starters, I think you’re fucking hot. And as it goes I think this is pretty fucking interesting too. So that’s perfect,’ he says happily.

Cathy is thankful he’s closed his eyes again, because she can’t look at him. Her cheeks feel like they do when she has a fever. I think you’re fucking hot. I think you’re fucking hot. Round and round it goes in Cathy’s mind, in Cathy’s stomach, in Cathy’s groin. What if she lay right down there next to him? Her eyes rove over him. That tight waist. That white t-shirt. She creeps towards him. Somehow, he knows, without his eyes being open, and he does the rest. One strong arm pulls her down, down, down, until her body is lying along the length of his, her head on his chest. That greenhouse smell all around her, finally, finally, finally.

‘So – first step,’ he says, and Cathy’s glad that he has cut through some of this tension with a surgeon’s skill, that he has guided the conversation back.

‘First step – the cow is nil by mouth,’ Cathy says. Tom rolls on to his side, looking at her, so she does the same, both propped up on their elbows. They could be in bed. Her eyes feel wide as dinner plates. What is she doing, lying in a damp field with a man she hardly knows? ‘Administer NSAIDs,’ she says, with a laugh. ‘You really want me to go on?’