The saloon pulled out of the gravel and onto the lane, and Victor settled into the seat that had taken eight years to wear into him. James was beside him with the leather folder closed on his lap, both hands flat on top of it, thumb on the right hand tapping once and then stopping and then tapping again.
The road into Aldenmere ran east through hedge and field and the old stone wall that started at the parish boundary and ran for a mile and a half before it gave up and became a fence. Victor drove the way he always drove, which was carefully, not slowly. There was a difference. Forty years in a market that punished the wrong kind of fast had taught him the difference, and he had ported the lesson into other places.
He let the silence sit. James also sat with whatever he was working on and worked on it.
A market, Victor thought, was a room full of people lying about what they wanted. Some of them did not know they were lying. Some of them were lying very deliberately. The skill was not in catching the lie. The skill was in noticing which kind of person was in front of you and pricing accordingly.
He had been a man who priced things for a living. He was retired. He still priced things.
He glanced sideways. James's thumb had stopped.
"I think we should ring her on the way," James said. "Save us a step."
"Hm," Victor said. He had been thinking the same thing. "Yes. Do."
James pulled out his phone. The country lane gave them a poor signal for half a mile and then better, and James waited it out without irritation. When the bars filled in, he tapped through and held the phone to his ear.
"Mrs Hallett. This is James — the son-in-law of Victor, who rang you yesterday." A pause. "Yes. We're driving into Aldenmere now. We have business at the bank, but we wondered if you and your husband had any time today to sit down."
Victor heard a woman's voice through the speaker, muffled, longer than a yes.
"That works," James said. "We'll be done at the bank by twelve at the latest. There's a pub on the corner of the market square — the King's Arms. Could we say twelve thirty there?"
Another pause.
"Both of you. Of course." James caught Victor's eye and tilted his head a quarter inch.
"Twelve thirty, then. Thank you, Mrs Hallett."
He hung up and put the phone face down on top of the folder.
"She didn't need persuading," James said.
"Hm," Victor said.
"Do you read that as good or bad?"
Victor thought about it for a moment. "She wants it done," he said. "That doesn't tell us the price. It tells us we'll get to the price."
James nodded slowly. "All right."
The road bent, and the spire of St. Catherine's came up over the hedge line, which meant Wrenford in another four minutes.
The square was open but thinner than it should have been. The hardware shop had a card in the window: CASH ONLY. NO EXCEPTIONS.
Victor parked off the square, and they walked to the bank. The teller at the counter looked up when they came in. Victor said Edmund's name. She nodded and went through a door.
Edmund came out a moment later — shorter than James, with a quick handshake for Victor and a nod for James. "Good to have you in. Let me get you through to the back."
The room he took them to was away from the counter. He closed the door.
"Can I get you anything? Tea, water?"
"We're fine," Victor said. "Thank you."
Edmund sat down. "There's a meeting at two. I don't know who called it, but I have a reliable idea what it's about." He paused. "I'd get your business done before then."
"What's on the agenda?" Victor said.
"Withdrawal limits. Possibly transaction caps. Nothing confirmed — that's why I'm saying probably. But the calls from head office these past two days have had a particular quality."
Victor nodded once.
"There's something else — and I'm telling you this because you ought to know, given what you're here to do." Edmund set his hands flat on the table. "The officers from the station — all of them — were called out yesterday evening. Government directive. They haven't come back. Word going around is that it's to do with the fissures."
"The fissures mentioned in the news?" Victor said.
"Yes. Deep structural damage from the quake. Survey work is the official line. The timing is what I'm noting."
Victor said nothing for a moment.
James's phone buzzed on the table. He picked it up, looked at it, and looked at Victor.
"It's Kwame," James said. "He transferred the money."
Victor nodded and turned back to Edmund. "Can you start the withdrawal process? We'll come back for it — and for the paperwork — in a little while. We have a meeting first."
They were on the pavement five minutes later.
Victor stepped out and stopped. He read the square.
A man outside the hardware shop, not looking at the hardware shop. A woman further along the pavement, phone in hand, not looking at it. Two people in the doorway of the old post office, standing close together, not speaking.
He started walking. James fell into step beside him.
"Did you see them?" James said.
"Yes," Victor said. "Let's finish and get clear. We don't need complications."
The King's Arms was on the corner. It was fuller than a Saturday lunchtime should have been. Victor and James took a table near the window. James ordered two halves.
Victor set his on the mat and listened.
A woman two tables away: "—Carlisle's apparently much worse, the cracks there are something else entirely, my cousin says you can see them from the road—"
A man at the bar, loud enough for the room to hear whether it wanted to or not: "—it's judgment, that's what it is, God is punishing us for our sins—"
Somewhere to their left, a voice: "—I rang the station three times, it just rang out, no one's there—"
From a table near the back, faster and quieter: "—they're saying the police from three stations were all pulled the same night—" "—keep your voice down—"
A table of four near the fire had a phone lying flat between the cups. One of them was pointing at something on the screen. The others leaned in.
James checked his phone. A message from June — Kwame had rung her. He'd told her he'd sent the money. James typed back and put it away.
"Third time someone's mentioned the police," James said.
Victor: "Hm."
Mrs Hallett came in at twenty-eight minutes past. She was in her late forties, dark-haired, the hair cut close around a face with her father's jaw and her own sharpness behind the eyes. She wore a dark wool coat, city-cut. Victor had known Henry Hallett to nod to for thirty years. The last time he'd seen Harriet was the year she married and left — she'd been twenty-something and in a different kind of coat.
Her husband was a few years younger, fair-haired, in a good suit. He'd brought a notebook with him.
"Mr Osei." She found their table without looking for it. "James. Sorry if we're a little late."
"Not at all," Victor said. They stood. "How was the drive from Dunmore?"
"Fine. Roads are quiet — not in a good way, but fine." She sat. Her husband sat beside her and introduced himself: Martin. He shook James's hand. "Have you been waiting long?"
"We had a few things to see to at the bank," Victor said. "It worked out."
They ordered drinks. Harriet looked around the pub once and then back at the table.
"You know the property," she said. "My father spoke well of your family."
"He was a good man," Victor said. "We were glad to know him."
She nodded once. "You had an offer?"
"Six hundred and fifty thousand as a direct transfer," Victor said. "The remainder on a fixed mortgage through Edmund Marsh. We spoke with him just before coming here."
Martin looked at him steadily. "The asking price is one and a half million."
"If the paperwork is done today, the cash is at the bank," James said. "Edmund is ready. If we wait, the mortgage rate changes, and I'll need to revisit the structure. I understand if you need more time. But the offer isn't open past today."
Harriet looked at him. Then at Martin.
"Give us five minutes," she said.
Victor and James went to the bar.
After a while, they came back to find her hands folded on the table.
"We'll do it today," she said. "But I want it in writing — that the land stays in agricultural use."
"It will," Victor said.
Martin said, quietly: "She grew up on that farm. She just wants to know the apple trees aren't going to become a car park."
"They won't," Victor said. "That's not what we're here for."
Harriet nodded once. She picked up her coat. "Then let's go and see Edmund."