The point was, wasn’t it, that the strange encounter with Chail and his mate in the arcade had forcefully and bewilderingly changed all the major expectations of Ralph’s life. Up until that frightening incident in the arcade, Ralph had thought of himself as very much in charge of how things were for him, and how they would be in the future. He was Ralph Ember of Low Pastures. He was the one who kept a watch, undetected, on someone who had come to seem a likely menace. Ralph did the watching, was certainly not the passive object, the targeted item. That’s how he saw things.

  But now he had to realize the facts were the opposite, and he’d better cater for this drastically changed situation. Because Chail and his friend had behaved as if they didn’t recognize him, or even see him, it made matters worse, showing that they did see and recognize him and had a very dangerous motive for acting as if they didn’t: that is, dangerous for Ralph. This was why he’d come to regard Low Pastures as a liability, not at all as previously a glorious asset. That pair hadn’t wanted to alert him, so they gave what the old politician used to call ‘the big ignoral’.

  He was standing with his back to the house and stepped a dozen paces forward into the grounds before turning, so that he could get a full sight of the frontage of the Low Pastures property. He knew this from previous use of the spot, but added a few more yards so that the scene would take in the extension. With this adjustment, the view was perfectly complete, and it restored some of his fondness for the spread. It was absurd, surely, to blame the estate of Low Pastures because things had turned rough for Ralph. The loveliness and dignity of the house and extension were there for him. Ralph reckoned that not many would appreciate the elegant splendour of Low Pastures as much as he usually did, and as he did again now. But he felt this wonderful construction could be taken from him, if someone hunted him and wiped out his business, wiped out himself, perhaps. Of course he’d had this feeling before. Low Pastures had a fine history, but there was also a recent period when it was rented out by the then owners to a very notable villain, Caring Oliver.

  That kind of impermanence was always in Ralph’s mind. He lived in a borderland between commerce and criminality, as did many others, not all of these in the House of Lords. After all, he could be regarded as a very notable villain himself. But he owned, not rented, Low Pastures, and owned it without a mortgage. This helped make Caring’s period here only a blip, not part of Low Pastures’ true character. Ralph, in fact, relied on this true character of the property to lift him out of crook category, though he was not stupid and recognized that without the marvellous illegal wealth from his commodities business, he would not have been able to buy and extend Low Pastures, with or without a mortgage, nor his social club, The Monty.

  He’d often experienced worrying uncertainty about his home and business but never as acutely as now. He was conscious of his sight of the house blurring somehow and suddenly knew he was weeping. That made him proud. More confusion. It showed a heartfelt and noble regard for the Low Pastures possessions. People looking at the house and its territory must reason that only someone who had the taste and wealth and stalwart character to chime with the obvious fine qualities on show here could be the proprietor of this gem: a radiant suitability, surely.

  Ralph did acknowledge to himself, occasionally, or more often than occasionally, that there might be a huge fault in this rickety attempt at logic. After all, Hitler probably had a nice, dinky place up in the mountains, but that couldn’t make him any sweeter. It was a brilliantly comforting idea, though, and deserved an airing, if only briefly. Ralph would provide it as often as he could for himself. He had to meet the standard imposed by his estate. Gazing at Low Pastures now, he decided he could be said to feel at home with large-scale ideas and concepts.

  It was a habit of his to come home between morning and late-night stints at The Monty. Margaret must have seen him from a window, dawdling in the grounds, and came out to join Ralph. She used the main entrance to the house. It was mid-afternoon on a sunny May day. He imagined what it might be like if someone were gunning for Margaret as a means of hurting him. Bushes and hedges gave intermittent cover on her approach, but there possibly wasn’t enough of it. He wiped the tears away from his cheeks with the backs of his hands.

  ‘Ralph! Have you been blubbing, you poor creature?’

  ‘Blubbing?’ he replied. ‘No, no.’ He had a good laugh as if amazed at the notion. ‘The sun hurts my eyes.’

  ‘All quiet and gracious on The Monty front?’ she said. He found he was still trying to work out in his mind the kind of sniping angles that might be used against Margaret one day. He had to take care of her and the children. That resolve never left him and never dwindled. It would be doubly terrible if any of his family were gunned down in the revered surroundings of Low Pastures, or even inside the house itself – the TV room, modernized kitchen, or his business office. This contained all his files and profit-and-loss accounts as a transaction facilitator – supposing there ever were losses.

  But he had hardly any qualms about allowing her free rein of such a sensitive area. This, after all, was the twenty-first century. A wife definitely deserved some privileges, especially the kind of talented wife Margaret had turned out to be. ‘Transaction facilitator’ was a mouthful. It meant he fixed deals. This was no minor skill. Some of these negotiations became very heated.

  They had another downstairs room they called the library, though it had on the shelves only what Ralph regarded as quite ordinary paperbacks, some car manuals and a couple of textbooks for that foundation year as a mature student on his university course; in suspension now because of business pressures. These seemed to be increasing all the time, though still without precise shape. But an increase was an increase.

  ‘If you’ve been crying, Ralph,’ Margaret said, ‘it would be something I’d understand totally.’

  ‘Crying?’ Ralph replied. ‘Am I a baby?’ It niggled him to be sympathized with by her.

  ‘It was as if it had surprised you, this reaction, this weeping – overwhelmed you. I hate to see you like that. Ralph Ember of Low Pastures is not such a person.’

  ‘True,’ Ralph said.

  ‘But …’

  ‘Is there a but?’

  ‘I think there is,’ Margaret said.

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Because I believe you were crying. And the thing is … the real thing is, I know why. OK, it’s still Ralph W. Ember of Low Pastures, and the location is, in fact, Low Pastures, but this doesn’t mean that Ralph W. Ember can’t have certain feelings, does it Ralph? And I see good cause for those feelings, irresistible cause for these feelings. I wonder if you know what I’m getting at, Ralph?’ He knew what she was getting at. It was what he would like to get at himself. It was what had brought on that unstoppable rush of tears.

  She waved her arm to take in everything – the house, the extension, the grounds, the cars parked near the main front door. The pool, tennis courts and stables were behind the house but Ralph reckoned she meant them as well. ‘It’s all so lovely,’ she said. ‘You cry out of joy and wonderment.’

  ‘Yes.’ But he feared it might all be snatched from him: others envied that loveliness, acquisitively envied it. He believed they regarded it as an insult that he kept it from them – flaunted it, in their opinion.

  ‘So completely beautiful,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you, Ralph, so completely right for it all and vice versa.’

  ‘Some comparison, Margaret!’

  ‘But spot on. Anyone would see it.’

  It was the kind of thinking he had dismissed as inflated tommyrot only a little while ago. But Ralph said nothing to correct her. She had joyfully presented him with this thought, obviously believing it was new and special to her, and he considered it would be monstrously cruel to reject it. She did another wave with her right arm involving the same areas and items and then lowered it and took hold of Ralph’s in a good, reassuring style. She nodded towards one of the thick, tall, evergreen hedges nearby, marking off the end of a croquet lawn.

  He gazed all around and could see no gardeners. They must be working behind the house. The children were still at school. Ralph gave a gentle pull on the sleeve of Margaret’s blouse and they moved towards the dense hedge, Ralph’s arm around her now. It wasn’t the first time they had made love close to these nicely fashioned roots, including even as late one year as Christmas week. It was a more apt climate today. Probably the gardeners were in the tulip beds at the back.

  In any case, Margaret and Ralph didn’t strip entirely. Ralph reckoned that nakedness wasn’t essential for sincerity, and he could supply plenty of sincerity, regardless of how he was dressed or half-dressed. Dropped trousers could have their own integrity, and the gentle sound of his braces hitting the ground entranced him. Perhaps, after all, she was right, and the grandeur of the setting did call for and get equivalent magnificence from him, not that daft temporary dislike.

  They tucked themselves in under the lowest branch of the hedge. It wasn’t just for concealment. They could find here a fresh-air sweetness and feel the strong companionship of nature. Ralph felt that nature had enough acceptable qualities to deserve his companionship. Margaret said: ‘If you were kicked out of the property, Ralph, I’d have a new name and identity for you.’

  ‘Yes? What?’

  ‘Al,’ she said.

  ‘Al what? Capone?’

  ‘Al Fresco-Fucker.’

  ‘Rarely, but worth the wait.’

  ‘All this is yours, Ralph. It can’t, in fact be taken away from you.’

  ‘It’s ours,’ he replied.

  ‘If you say so. Kind,’ she said. ‘And there’s absolutely no call for tears.’

  The gardeners would be too far off to hear anything of the pleasured wolf-brand howling and urgent, high-pitched boiled-kettle-type scream. Afterwards Margaret and Ralph brushed each other down.

  ‘You make me determined and reliable, Maggie.’ But an al-fresco fuck couldn’t really solve everything. Ralph’s fears remained, even if the tears didn’t.

  ‘You underestimate yourself, Ralph. In some ways the modesty is admirable.’

  ‘It used to bore me paralytic when people kept saying I resembled the young Charlton Heston,’ he replied.

  ‘Which you do. But I and others want to go deeper. We respect something solid and courageous.’

  ‘Thank you, Maggie.’

  They made their way back towards the main porch and doors of the house. They walked slowly. They were close but Ralph didn’t have an arm around her now. Ralph thought that kind of thing could be overdone. Good marriages didn’t need it. If you’d brushed first-grade soil off someone’s clothes, this of itself was a statement of devotion.

  In any case, his feelings at present were different from hers. He stopped and turned around to look towards the gates and the road. He wanted to get a more settled, careful view of where exactly the shot, shots, might come from if Margaret was targeted one day when she made her way across the front lawns, shielded at some moments by the bushes and hedges, including the love hedge.

  She paused alongside him, though she couldn’t know why Ralph had pulled up. Maybe she believed he simply needed a confirmation of the grand elegance of the view from the house, a reminder always gloriously available for him and Margaret. He saw nothing unusual, in fact saw nothing that moved. It was like a beautiful picture. He did hear a car or van engine, though, a car that seemed to be approaching Low Pastures and slowing. It was out of sight for the moment behind trees that bordered the estate.

  Ralph tensed. Part of him realized this might be absurd: all kinds of vehicles – entirely unthreatening vehicles – came to Low Pastures. Margaret had a lot of stuff delivered. OK, OK, a car was approaching and reducing speed. So what? Did it seem a special, unfavourable kind of slowing? Did it bring big and dangerous possibilities? Ralph wondered, and yes, also tensed up. There’d been a time when this kind of special alertness was more or less routine for him. Some enemies had been obstructive and needed deterring, or if the circumstances were unresolvable, shot. This was very much a family home now and the circumstances were different. He had a family’s ordinary needs.

  He saw nothing unusual when he did his eyeballing. In fact, he still saw nothing that moved. Ralph rarely carried a gun these days, and hardly ever around Low Pastures. A current distaste for firearms and bullets governed his life lately and made him decide to deal with any menace by hand, skin-on-skin, as it were. But now he did feel this had come to seem hopelessly precious and tangled when seen against practicalities. He found he longed for a pistol as he and Margaret stared towards the Low Pastures open gates. She had obviously heard the car too, and glanced at Ralph to see his reactions. She appeared to share his anxiety, then looked back towards the road and gates.

  Ralph had consciously to stop himself patting his jacket pockets, as if about to locate and produce a gun. He knew depressingly well that there was no gun. Margaret would know it too. She could often read him accurately, despite his efforts to disguise something stupid and embarrassing. She would realize that Ralph was off-balance and disturbed, was idiotically searching for help where no help could possibly be found now, only on offer years ago at a period when Ralph was somebody different, with other trappings and accessories.

  In the past he would have used a shoulder holster. Only the sleekest of automatics could fit into a jacket pocket without causing a giveaway bulge. When Ralph went with a pistol aboard in those rougher times, he would have avoided that crudeness, so his action now was nonsensical twice over, searching for a non-existent gun, and standing shakily with Margaret, waiting to see what this car’s business might be – maybe nothing much at all to worry about, perhaps the week’s supermarket deliveries.

  Ralph thought he would have recognized the engine sound of any really distinguished car, say a Ferrari or even a Jaguar. A Bentley or Rolls would have next-to-no engine noise at all, of course. This vehicle made quite an amount of noise, though seemingly not doing very much in the way of progress.

  A dark red Peugeot saloon, a few years old and not very spruce, travelling at about ten miles an hour, appeared in the gateway and came on into the grounds at the same speed. The driver gave two short toots on the horn as greeting. Ralph didn’t recognize the bearded companion of Bernard Chail behind the wheel, with Chail himself in the passenger seat. The car stopped and he lowered his window. He leaned out and gave a cheery prolonged wave to Margaret and Ralph. ‘Wonderful to see you, Ember!’ he called. ‘And your lady, too, of course. Where are my manners?’

  Neither Margaret nor Ralph waved back. ‘Who are these people, Ralph?’ she said.

  ‘I’ll deal with it,’ he replied.

  ‘Yes, but who are they?’

  Chail said: ‘I believe Mrs Ember is puzzled. Shall I tell you what I see?’

  ‘No thanks,’ Ralph said. ‘Could you please go and see it somewhere else?’

  ‘What I see is two admirable folk, possibly post-recent-intimacy, enjoying pleasured moments flanked by beautiful symbols of their success, namely the Low Pastures edifice.’

  ‘Are you pissed?’ Margaret replied. ‘Whether or not, fuck off out of here.’

  ‘We’d hoped to make contact earlier,’ Chail said. ‘Did Ralph tell you about the arcade? We’d have liked him to follow us out to somewhere confidential on that day.’

  ‘Out of where?’ Margaret said.

  ‘The arcade, of course,’ Chail said. ‘But he’s too wily. We realize we are dealing with someone considerable. Phone certainly won’t do. I don’t mean just the magnificence of the property, though the property is a factor, bound to be – the china collection, the children’s ponies and the pool, together with the actual building.’

  Chail bent his left arm out of the car window, made a fist and brought it down to give the door a couple of hard blows – exasperated, ashamed blows. ‘But look here, you’re listening intently to me, but I know that if you were to respond it would be with one unfriendly word, “bullshit!” The flattery does nothing to make my approach to you stronger and more convincing.’

  ‘Absolutely not, so get lost,’ Margaret said.

  ‘I’m pretty certain you two can sense that there are crucial changes due in the business scene here,’ Chail replied. ‘Why I said we’d hoped to make contact earlier.’

  He withdrew his arm. ‘Instability,’ he said. ‘We have to cater for instability, potential instability. The possibilities are infinite, and very daunting.’

  That sort of word – ‘instability’ – satisfied Ralph. It was a proper commercial dealings word and he could take it three times if necessary. ‘Potential’ went with it OK. It had a fragment of subtlety to it – a bit of a go at forecasting.

  Chail, smiling genially, got out of the car. As if following this prompt, the driver did too. They seemed to feel they would be asked into the house to carry on the conversation more comfortably.

  But Margaret said: ‘So goodbye, both.’

  Ralph felt strangely impressed by the cockiness of these two, though. It almost matched the attitude Iles could take now and then. He found himself wondering whether perhaps, after all, they had something genuinely new, genuinely useful. He admired their attempt to lure him out from the arcade when he heard about it. That was subtlety.

  ‘Reputation,’ Chail said. ‘Other firms all over Britain, maybe even in France and Holland, try hard to model their companies on yours and Manse Shale’s. I mean the steadiness and civility. And I suppose, too, the kind of status that can bring possession of a splendid, generally admired estate like this one.’ He gestured with one hand towards the house and the setting. There’d be sentries at night, wouldn’t there?

  Ralph thought Margaret might have spotted that his reaction to these two was altering, perhaps had already altered, had softened, had become more positive. He sensed that she might be reshaping her own estimate of them. That was how things often were with Margaret: she would swap or amend her views on something so they squared with his. It was one of her most loveable qualities. But it wasn’t just a matter of love. She knew there were people in Ralph’s work that she could not know properly, or truly know at all. These two were in that category. She had to take her lead from Ralph in her attitude.