"You have to do better than your father."

"Is that such a poor ambition?"

"Yes!" Her sudden vehemence was a shock. "You should want good health, and long life, and-and my happiness."

"If the company was prosperous, perhaps I could sell it. As things are, I wouldn't get its asset value." He looked at his watch. "I must go down."

He descended the broad staircase. A portrait of his father dominated the hall. People often thought it was Derek at fifty. In fact it was Jasper at sixty-five. The phone on the hall stand shrilled as he passed. He ignored it: he did not take calls in the morning.

He went into the small dining room-the large one was reserved for parties, which were rare these days. The circular table was laid with silver cutlery. An elderly woman in an apron brought in half a grapefruit in a bone china dish.

"Not today, Mrs. Tremlett," he told her. "Just a cup of tea, please." He picked up The Financial Times.

The woman hesitated, then put the dish down in Ellen's place. Hamilton glanced up. "Just take it away, will you?" he said irritably. "Serve Mrs. Hamilton's breakfast when Mrs. Hamilton comes down, and not before, please."

"Very good," Mrs. Tremlett murmured. She took the grapefruit away.

When Ellen came in she picked up the argument where they had left it. "I don't think it matters whether you get five million or five hundred thousand for the company. Either way we'd be better off than we are now. Since we don't live comfortably, I fail to see the point of being comfortably off."

He put down the paper and looked at her. She was wearing an original tailored suit in a cream-colored fabric, with a printed silk blouse and handmade shoes. He said: "You have a pleasant home, with a small staff. You've friends here, and a social life in Town when you care to take advantage of it. This morning you're wearing several hundred pounds' worth of clothes, and you'll probably go no farther than the village. Sometimes I wonder what you want out of life."

She blushed-a rare event. "I'll tell you," she began.

There was a knock at the door, and a good-looking man came in, wearing an overcoat and carrying a cap. "Good morning, sir, madam," he said. "If we're to catch the seven forty-five, sir…"

Hamilton said: "All right, Pritchard. Just wait in the hall."

"Very good, sir. May I ask if you'll be using the car today, madam?"

Hamilton looked at Ellen. She kept her eyes on her dish as she said: "I expect so, yes."

Pritchard nodded and went out.

Hamilton said: "You were about to tell me what you want out of life."

"I don't think it's a breakfast-table subject, especially when you're rushing to catch a train."

"Very well." He stood up. "Enjoy your drive. Don't go too fast."

"What?"

"Drive carefully."

"Oh. Oh, Pritchard drives me."

He bent to kiss her cheek, but she turned her face to him and kissed his lips. When he pulled away, her face was flushed. She held his arm and said: "I want you, Derek."

He stared at her.

"I want us to spend a long, contented retirement together," she went on, speaking hurriedly. "I want you to relax, and eat the right food, and grow healthy and slim again. I want the man who came courting in an open-top Riley, and the man who came back from the war with medals and married me, and the man who held my hand when I bore my children. I want to love you."

He stood nonplussed. She had never been like this with him, never. He felt hopelessly incapable of dealing with it. He did not know what to say, what to do, where to look. He said: "I… must catch the train."

She regained her composure quickly. "Yes. You must hurry."

He looked at her a moment longer, but she would not meet his eyes. He said: "Um… good-bye."

She nodded dumbly.

He went out. He put on his hat in the hall, then let Pritchard open the front door for him. The dark blue Mercedes stood on the gravel drive, gleaming in the sunshine. Pritchard must wash it every morning before I get up, Hamilton thought.

The conversation with Ellen had been most peculiar, he decided, as they drove to the railway station. Through the window he watched the play of sunlight on the already-browning leaves, and ran over the key scenes in his mind. I want to love you, she had said, with the emphasis on you. Talking of the things he had sacrificed for the business, she had said and God knows what else.

I want to love you, not someone else. Was that what she meant? Had he lost the fidelity of his wife, as well as his health? Perhaps she simply wanted him to think she might be having an affair. That was more like Ellen. She dealt in subtleties. Cries for help were not her style.

After the six-month results, he needed domestic problems like a creditors' meeting.

There was something else. She had blushed when Pritchard asked if she would be using the car; then, hastily, she had said Pritchard drives me.

Hamilton said: "Where do you take Mrs. Hamilton, Pritchard?"

"She drives herself, sir. I make myself useful around the house-there's always plenty-"

"Yes, all right," Hamilton interrupted. "This isn't a time-and-motion study. I was only curious."

"Sir."

His ulcer stabbed him. Tea, he thought: I should drink milk in the morning.

Herbert Chieseman switched on the light, silenced the alarm clock, turned up the volume of the radio, which had been playing all night, and pressed the rewind button of the reel-to-reel tape recorder. Then he got out of bed.

He put the kettle on, and stared out of the studio apartment window while he waited for the seven-hour tape to return to the start. The morning was clear and bright. The sun would be strong later, but now it was chilly. He put on trousers and a sweater over the underwear he had worn in bed, and stepped into carpet slippers.

His home was a single large room in a North London Victorian house which was past its best. The furniture, the Ascot heater, and the old gas cooker belonged to the landlord. The radio was Herbert's. His rent included the use of a communal bathroom and-most important-exclusive use of the attic.

The radio dominated the room. It was a powerful VHF receiver, made from parts he had carefully selected in half a dozen shops along Tottenham Court Road. The aerial was in the roof loft. The tape deck was also homemade.

He poured tea into a cup, added condensed milk from a tin, and sat at his worktable. Apart from the electronic equipment, the table bore only a telephone, a ruled exercise book, and a ballpoint pen. He opened the book at a clean page and wrote the date at the top in a large, cursive script. Then he reduced the volume of the radio and began to play the night's tape at high speed. Each time a high-pitched squeal indicated that there was speech on the recording, he slowed the reel with his finger until he could distinguish the words.

"… car proceed to Holloway Road, the bottom end, to assist PC…"

"… Ludlow Road, West Five, a Mrs. Shaftesbury-sounds like a domestic, Twenty-One…"

"… Inspector says if that Chinese is still open he'll have chicken fried rice with chips…"

"… Holloway Road get a move on-that PC's in trouble…"

Herbert stopped the tape and made a note.

"… reported burglary of a house-that's near Wimbledon Common, Jack…"

"… Eighteen, do you read…"

"… any cars Lee area free to assist Fire Brigade at twenty-two Feather Street…"

Herbert made another note.

"… Eighteen, do you read…"

"… I don't know, give her an aspirin…"

"… assault with a knife, not serious…"

"… where the hell have you been, Eighteen…"

Herbert's attention strayed to the photograph on the mantelpiece above the boarded-in fireplace. The picture was flattering: Herbert had known this, twenty years ago, when she had given it to him; but now he had forgotten. Oddly, he did not think of her as she really had been, anymore. When he remembered her he visualized a woman with flawless skin and hand-tinted cheeks, posing before a faded panorama in a photographer's studio.