Joe waited again at their junction for half an hour the following Wednesday. Checked his watch over and over, looking down the road to see if she was coming. He didn’t want to be spotted loitering. It didn’t do to draw attention to himself, or the birdwatching glasses, in case they thought he was a spy. He’d been lucky, so far. Never stopped nor searched. He guessed his clerical collar gave him a licence to pass unmolested.

Trude didn’t come. He wanted to write to her, but he didn’t know where to send the letter and didn’t want anyone to read it by mistake. But what could he say? What could a priest say? He loitered for as long as he could at the junction where they used to meet on Monday afternoons, then set off for La Ferme de l’Anse, just in case she’d gone there instead. He would have given anything to have Trude here with him. He had never been obsessed with another person before, but he recognised that’s what it was. Obsession. He should confess, seek guidance, but he couldn’t bare his soul, not for this. It ran too deep within. Too fast. Too twisted.

The leaves were fresh and verdant, and the sun cast a dappled shadow on the narrow lanes. The hedgerows either side were tall and thick, the frail limbs of new growth grafted onto old dark twigs. He stopped, listen, look. He could hear life scurrying in the undergrowth, see a robin with a worm in its beak plunging into the interior. He’d need to keep an eye out for fledglings in due course.

He pushed off again, turned right at the mill, wove his way up and down the by-lanes, until he reached Geoffrey’s field. Bike tucked safely behind the gate, binoculars hanging round his neck, he began to thread his way to the dell. He heard a soft, insistent twi-twi-twi-twi-twi and turned to see the yellowhammer squatting on the gatepost, head to one side, its saffron head and breast glinting in the sun. He smiled at it, hello little friend, wanted to wave, have you seen her? The oats were taller, swayed in the breeze like waves in the sea, and the grass had grown in the dell into clumpy hillocks.