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with you gone I could go to the DHSS, couldn’t I? They could send their snoopers round and it wouldn’t matter. They wouldn’t be able to say I was having sex with you then, not if you weren’t here. Anyway, I’ve got a bit in my post-office account.”
    The casual cruelty of the suggestion struck at his heart. He heard with heavy disgust the note of self-pity which he was unable to suppress. He said: “Is that what you really want, Amy, for me not to be here?”
    “Don’t be daft, I was only teasing. Honestly, Neil, you should see yourself. Talk about misery. Anyway, it might not happen—the libel action, I mean.”
    “It’s bound to happen unless she withdraws it. They’ve set a date for the hearing.”
    “She might withdraw it, or else she might die. She might drown on one of those night swims she takes after theheadlines on the nine o’clock news, regular as clockwork, right up to December.”
    “Who told you that? How do you know that she swims at night?”
    “You did.”
    “I can’t remember telling you.”
    “Then someone else did, one of the regulars in the Local Hero, maybe. I mean, it’s no secret, is it?”
    He said: “She won’t drown. She’s a strong swimmer. She wouldn’t take foolish risks. And I can’t wish her dead. You can’t preach love and practise hatred.”
    “I can—wish her dead, I mean. Maybe the Whistler will get her. Or you might win the action and then she’ll have to pay you. That’d be a laugh.”
    “That’s not very likely. I consulted a lawyer at the Citizen’s Advice Bureau when I was in Norwich last Friday. I could see he thought it was serious, that she did have a case. He said I ought to get myself a lawyer.”
    “Well, get one.”
    “How? Lawyers cost money.”
    “Get legal aid. Put a note in the newsletter asking for contributions.”
    “I can’t do that. It’s difficult enough keeping the newsletter going, what with the cost of paper and postage.”
    Amy said, suddenly serious: “I’ll think of something. There’s still four weeks to go. Anything can happen in four weeks. Stop worrying. It’s going to be all right. Look, Neil, I promise you that libel action will never come to court.” And, illogically, he was, for the moment, reassured and comforted.

7
    It was six o’clock, and at Larksoken Power Station the weekly interdepartmental meeting was drawing to a close. It had lasted thirty minutes longer than usual. Dr. Alex Mair took the view, which he could normally enforce by brisk chairmanship, that little original thought was contributed to a discussion after three hours of talking. But it had been a heavy agenda: the revised safety plan still in draft; the rationalization of the internal structure from the present seven departments to three, under Engineering, Production and Resources; the report of the District Survey Laboratory on their monitoring of the environment; the preliminary agenda for the local Liaison Committee. This annual jamboree was an unwieldy but useful public-relations exercise which needed careful preparation, including as it did representatives from the interested government departments, local authorities, police, fire and water authorities, the National Farmers’ Union and the County Landowners’ Association. Mair sometimes grudged the work and time it involved but he knew its importance.
    The weekly meeting was held in his office at the conference table set in front of the south window. Darkness was falling and the huge pane of glass was a black rectangle in which he could see their faces reflected, like the gaunt, disembodied heads of night travellers in a lighted railway carriage. He suspected that some of his departmental heads, particularly Bill Morgan, the Works Office Engineer, and Stephen Mansell, the Maintenance Superintendent, would have preferred a more relaxed setting, in his private sitting room next door, the low, comfortable chairs, a few hours of chat with no set agenda, perhaps a drink together