‘—isn’t any future for these people. None. There’s no—’

‘Or is it just high finance you’ve spent your time on?’

‘—no west for them to go to. Have you no pity?’

‘For Christ’s sake, can’t you fix the roof? Can’t you do at least that?’

Without warning, the mare whipped her head around to lunge at Jonathan; Josh grabbed the bridle. The horse snorted and stamped. ‘Hey, Jenny, hey girl,’ Josh crooned, reaching to stroke her nose. The mare dipped her head under his hand like a cat.

Jonathan felt a sudden unreality take hold of him. ‘You’re working for Lemon Pinnock, aren’t you? What for? You’re the Indian who mucks out his stables.’

Josh dropped Jenny’s bridle. ‘You blab at them about it and I’ll kill you. You hear?’

‘You wouldn’t know how,’ Jonathan said contemptuously.

Josh snorted, turned to stroke Jenny, paused, then whipped back much as she had only a moment before. ‘Hammer is marteau,’ he shouted. ‘Nail is clou. Roof is toit. Canute was born in 995. Hume said, “I look inside myself and find David Hume’s experiences but I cannot find David Hume.”’ The tendons stood out in his cheeks and neck. ‘You’re right, you motherfucker, I wouldn’t know how to kill you. I don’t know how to mend a roof, either. Where do you think I’d have learned skills like that? At this place? Hie, haec, hoc, huius, huius, huius – All I’m fit for is clearing out horse shit.’ He stopped, shook his head and covered his face with his hands. ‘They don’t have a dollar left. Not a dime or a nickel. Not a penny. Not a sou, not a centime—’

‘Don’t shit me,’ Jonathan said. ‘There was money. Lots of it. You know that, and I know it. What’d you throw it away on? Horses? Women? Gambling?’

Josh laughed. ‘Oh, I’d have liked that, Cardinal. Why didn’t I think of it myself? Trouble is, I just didn’t get the chance—’

Jonathan grabbed hold of Josh’s shirt lapels and yanked him forward so that their faces almost met. ‘Who did then?’

‘Dear me, what a violent man of God—’

‘Speak!’

Josh let himself hang loose in Jonathan’s grip. ‘You know these good people, oh, pastor mine, as well as I do. A whimpering story and their hearts melt all over the floor. The money just drops out of their pockets of its own weight.’

Jonathan let go of him abruptly. Then abruptly he turned, took the saddle from the rack, threw it over Jenny, settled it, fastened the cinch around her middle with an angry jerk. He wasn’t good with animals. He used to say they never did what you told them to. ‘Which one was it this time? Bonds for the Utopia of Idaho? Shares in an orphanage in China? Pregnant cats? Stray dogs?’

‘All those and dozens more,’ Josh said. ‘Sharks flocked to Malloy’s Landing – covered every inch of the shore.’

‘Soft-bellied liberal miasma,’ Jonathan muttered furiously, giving the cinch another jerk. Jenny lunged at him again, but in his rage he avoided her easily. ‘Oozing sentimentality – rotten, pestilent – Where the hell were you while this was going on?’