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workers begin to frighten people. They troop through the trees at sundown, like shadows. Here we are. My little investment.” And the car stopped in a glade on a mud patch where a dilapidated wooden box of a dwelling seemed to have become stuck up a tree.
    “Oh, no!” she said. “Oh, no—oh, no!”
    The zigzag notice Danger of Death was in place at the foot of the ladder. The driver lifted Ross out of the car and locked the car again behind him and Elisabeth inside watched the little man unlock the gate, shuffle painfully up the ladder stair, unlock the front door and disappear. When he came out again the driver lifted him back to his seat, relocked the car doors.
    Ross sat on his perch and said nothing.
    “Can we go? Can we please go now?” she said. “Please, I don’t like it here, it’s horrible.”
    “I let it by the hour,” he said. “Night or day. It has been a good investment.”
    “It’s disgusting. Vile. Please can we go to Edward? Tell him to start the car. Does Edward know you own this?”
    “Certainly not. When I bought it, it was for myself. A haven of peace in my difficult life, watching the cards. But I have let things slide. I live in so many places. I let it, in a very discreet way. And I am getting rid of it now.”
    “Yes. Please. Can we go?”
    “On one condition,” said the dwarf. “That you will never think of it or of any such place again.”
    “Of course not. Of course not. Look, I’m feeling cold—”
    “And that you will never leave Edward.”
    “He knows. I’ve told him I’ll never leave him. I swear it.”
    “If you leave him,” said Ross, “I will break you.”
     
    At their destination the driver got out to open her door, and Ross tossed over to her a green silk purse.
    “You left your passport behind,” he said.

CHAPTER NINE
     
    S he heard laughter. Cheerful shouting. English laughter and across the terrace saw Eddie’s legal team all drinking Tiger beer. There were six or seven of them in shirts and shorts, and Edward standing tall among them without a tie, head back, roaring with laughter. The cotton dress would have been right.
    Edward came striding over to her, stopped before he reached her, held out a hand and took her round a corner of the terrace out of sight of the others. He looked young. He held her tight. He took both her hands and said, “Did you think I’d forgotten you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you know what’s happened?”
    “Yes. You’ve got Silk. You’re a QC.”
    “No. Not that. Do you know that the Case has settled?”
    “No!”
    “It’s taken sixteen hours. Sixteen solid hours. But we’ve settled out of court. Neither side went to bed. But everyone’s happy and we can all go home. Ross is packing the papers. The other side’s off already. Veneering left this morning so the air’s pure again.”
    “Eddie—you’ve all lost a fortune. How much a day was it? Thousands?”
    “No idea,” he said, “and no consequence. I’ve got the brief fee. It’ll pay for the honeymoon. I’ve told Ross and the clerks to get it in, and then that I don’t want any more work until I’m back in London. I’ve said two months. I’ve told him to give everything to Fiscal-Smith.”
    “Whoever’s that?”
    “Someone who’s always hanging about. Takes anything and pays for nothing. The meanest lawyer at the Bar. An old friend.”
    She sat down on the parapet and looked across the sea. He hadn’t asked her one thing about herself. Her own plans. He didn’t even know whether she had a job she had to get back to. If she had any money. About when her holiday ended. She tried to remember whether he’d ever asked anything about her at all.
    “We might go to India,” he said. “D’you want a cup of coffee? You’ll have had dinner somewhere, I hope.” He and the noisy group of liberated lawyers had dined very early. Final toasts were now going round. Taxis arrived. Farewells. More laughter. Edward and Elisabeth were alone again under the same