He was gearing up to whistle at them, but she called back, ‘Sorry, no, I can’t – I’ve got to do a site inspection later.’

‘Where?’

‘In Sunbury.’

‘Oh.’ He looked subdued, until he realized what she’d meant. ‘Is that still dragging on?’

‘I hope this afternoon will be the end of it.’

‘Don’t worry, then. Another time. And I’ll phone Mr Mayhood soon.’

‘You’d better,’ she said. It was true that he was not the same boy any more. His borstal posture had relaxed, his speaking voice was gentler but more self-assured. In her absence, he’d matured – both in his temperament and physically. She was going to tell him her good news, but knew her chance had gone. She’d tell him on the phone. ‘And, by the way, you ought to walk round to your aunty’s now and then. She’s hurt and that does no one any good. Be kind to her.’

‘Point taken,’ he said, backing off into the sunshine. ‘You drive home safely.’

*

It hadn’t helped their chances of acquiring new commissions to be stuck in a dispute over the Proctor house. Before the defects liability period on the building work had lapsed, they’d done a maintenance inspection and amassed a list of faults that needed fixing – most of these were minor, although one or two were troubling omissions. They’d sent their list to the contractor, expecting that the flaws would be resolved within four months. At the next inspection – January last year – she’d gone with Arthur in the hope of issuing a certificate and releasing funds to the contractor, but the work had been substandard. Arthur had to steer her to a quiet corner of the site and say, ‘Can you believe the brass neck of this lot? The damp-coursing’s not right. And there are twice as many cracks now in those bricks upstairs.’

The situation was so fraught, it had developed into confrontation very quickly. The senior builders on the site, with whom they’d worked quite happily for eighteen months, had turned unfriendly: ‘You were never bloody here to know what mortar we were using.’ ‘Busy dumping bodies, so the papers say.’ ‘Did I hear right – they haven’t found the girl yet?’ ‘I suppose you didn’t like her workmanship, then, either. Best watch out.’ The next day, they’d been threatened twice over the phone by men who didn’t give their names. The Proctors had been understanding, patient, but their confidence had worn away. They’d pursued the matter in the courts, which had delayed things even longer, and eventually they’d hired another building firm to carry out the works.

Arthur blamed himself. He said he should’ve been more scrupulous in tendering, on site more often, less reliant on the clerk’s reports. But it was not his fault. The truth was, the contractors hadn’t paid their tradesmen well enough; they’d used materials that hadn’t been agreed to in the contract, cheaper and unfit for purpose. And, beyond that, Leventree had been in a suspended state for weeks, disturbed by the police and their investigation. Sacrifices had been made along the way.