‘No gender equity there.’

He shakes his head. ‘On the contrary.’

‘And Angel? How is she?’

‘I’m a good husband to her.’

‘And Rika?’

‘A very good husband,’ he says, and stands up to shake the hand of a man who’s come in with an Australian guest.

‘Will Leonard and Jericho be okay on the mountain?’ Martha asks when the hand-shaking ends. ‘Jericho was stopped on the road coming down last time.’

‘I heard.’

‘Can’t you prevent it?’

He leans back and laughs again. ‘How do you think I can do that? Police the boys on the road. I’m not fool enough to walk up there at this age.’ He pats his stomach. ‘How fit is Leonard?’

‘He seems okay. He swam across the fjord.’

Jacob shrugs. ‘Tell Jericho to come and have lunch with me.’

‘He won’t.’

‘Because of Bili?’

‘Probably.’

‘She’s a fool, that girl. Always was, even as a child.’

‘She’s brave and she’s strong,’ Martha says.

‘Doesn’t stop her being a fool.’

‘She won that Collingwood Bay case against you.’

‘She’d have done better to settle. It’ll come back, and it’ll come back in a worse form.’

‘But they won.’

‘Win on the rules and the rules are changed.’

‘And you think that’s okay?’

‘No, I don’t think that’s okay. That’s why I wanted her to settle.’

‘That’s not what she says.’

‘I told you, she’s a fool. Can’t see past the battle she’s in. She fights for it all and won’t compromise.’

‘Isn’t that a strength in a compromised world? To stand up for what’s right?’

Jacob laughs. ‘There you are,’ he says. ‘I told you you were one of the good ones.’ He smiles, changes tack. ‘Is Jericho going to stay here?’

‘His job starts again in a few months.’ She’s not going to tell Jacob their business.

‘He should take her to London.’

This time it’s Martha who laughs. ‘You wish, ha! Get rid of the opposition!’

He shakes his head. ‘Not what I was thinking at all. Dessert?’

Martha pats her own stomach. ‘Better not,’ she says, and manages not to be dissuaded. Coffee is enough. Coffee and one black chocolate.

‘Lance,’ Martha says. ‘I heard he was expelled. Drugs. That must be a worry.’

‘He was a late child. Angel’s last baby. She spoiled him.’

‘Her fault?’

‘No. Too much ease. Boys his age forget what was won, they forget the villages. They take wealth for granted.’

‘I thought the entitlement of the young was a western problem.’

‘He’s a western boy. That’s why I sent him back to the village.’ Martha sees a shadow cross his face - pain perhaps, or disappointment. Regret. She doesn’t know.

The shadow passes and Jacob smiles, putting his napkin on the table. ‘There’s one thing you can tell me,’ he says before he asks for the bill. ‘Did Bili realise what she saw that day? At the station?’

‘No.’ Martha smiles. ‘She thought there was a man in a cape biting Rika’s neck. She thinks a vampire movie has got entangled in her memory. She thought it was at the fjords. That night.’