“Nor will acquiescence. We’re being asked to sell the workforce down the drain to pay for our mistakes. The mistakes of some of us, anyway.”

Adrian was angry. That last shaft had hit home. I could tell by the tic working in his cheek. But not by the tone of his voice. It stayed calm and reasonable. “Bushranger wants to take us over, not close us down. The workforce will be fully protected. Timariot and Small will become a subsidiary of Bushranger Sports, that’s all. In some ways it’ll be a bigger and more challenging operation. We’ll be marketing Bushranger’s products along with-”

“Who’s we? Who’s going to head this subsidiary? Our current chairman?”

Adrian flushed. “Perhaps. But-”

“No doubt a seat on the Bushranger board will go with the job. I can see you’ll have done very well out of taking this company from profit into self-inflicted loss.” I was angry too. Angrier than I could ever have foreseen at the terminal consequences of my smooth-talking wide-horizoned brother’s leadership. And at my own naïvety. I should have nipped his ill-considered ambitions in the bud long ago. I should have known better than to trust him with stewardship of the values and traditions bound up in Timariot & Small. I should have realized he saw them merely as a stepping-stone to something bigger and grander. Bigger and grander, that is, for him.

“Your share of two and a half million won’t be a bad return for three years’ exile from the fleshpots of Brussels,” said Adrian, his face darkening.

“Won’t? Don’t you mean wouldn’t? If we compounded your errors of judgement by accepting this offer?”

He sat back and composed himself, refusing to let me draw him into open confrontation. “I’m confident this board will accept the offer, when it’s had time to consider its merits. For the moment, that’s all I’m asking it to do. Though I should tell you I stopped off in France on my way back from Australia. I visited Bella in Biarritz and put her in the picture. She, like me, favours acceptance.”

So there it was. The virtual declaration of his victory. Between them, he and Bella controlled more than 40 per cent of the company’s shares. If Jennifer voted with them-as her guarded remarks had suggested she would-Adrian would be home and dry. Simon was bitter enough when I cornered him in his office later. But he was already becoming philosophical. “This could net me more than three hundred thou,” Rob. Enough to keep Joan at bay and then some. I’ve got to go for it. You do see that, don’t you?” Oh, I saw. I saw all too clearly. “Anybody who votes no will get the chop if it goes through. That’s obvious. And it will go through. You know it will. So why fight it?”

Why indeed? It was hard to explain to somebody who didn’t understand. Uncle Larry understood, of course. I went out with him for a long lugubrious lunch at the Bat & Ball on Broadhalfpenny Down, the cradle of organized cricket. Afterwards, we stood outside in the rain, gazing over the fence at the famous ground, its old thatched pavilion and memorial stone bearing witness to the legendary exploits of the Hambledon club more than two hundred years ago.

“John Small played here many times,” said Uncle Larry. “Old John, I mean. He was a bat maker for more than seventy years, you know.” I knew very well. He was also grandfather of the John Small who’d gone into business with Joseph Timariot in 1836. “I suppose you could say he was our founder in a sense.”

“I shall vote against,” I solemnly declared.

“So shall I. But we’ll lose, won’t we? Adrian has his children to consider. Simon needs the money. Jenny can’t stop thinking like an accountant. And to Bella it’s all antediluvian nonsense. Our goose is cooked.”

“But not served or eaten. Not yet.”

I drove straight home from Broadhalfpenny Down and telephoned Bella. But she wasn’t in. Instead, Sir Keith came on the line.

“Anything I can do for you, Robin?”

“I don’t think so. I wanted to talk to Bella about the Bushranger bid.”

“Ah yes. Your brother told us all about it. Seems a neat way out of the hole you’ve dug yourselves into. Bella certainly seems to think so.”

“Does she?”

“I suppose you’re mightily relieved.”

“Not exactly.”

“You should be. Salvation of this order doesn’t often present itself. I’m glad you called, by the way. My solicitor tells me that TV programme Benefit of the Doubt is going to take a sceptical look at Naylor’s conviction. Have you heard anything from the producers?”

“No,” I heard myself lie. “Not a thing.”

“Well, if you do-”

“I’ll know what to tell them.”

Looking back, I can see why it happened. My anger at the probable demise of Timariot & Small and my frustration at being unable to do anything to prevent it had to find an outlet. I didn’t think it through on a conscious level. I didn’t plan to lash out at Bella by upsetting her husband’s cosy assumptions. But that’s what I did. I’d spent a couple of hours at Greenhayes, drinking scotch and watching the rain sheet across the garden, when Seymour and his cameraman arrived, dead on time, at six o’clock. I’d worked up a fine head of resentment by then. Resentment of the greed that had dragged down Timariot & Small; of the ease with which Adrian and the rest seemed able to turn their backs on the labour of four generations; of the readiness I and others had displayed to mould the memory of Louise Paxton to fit our requirements. The ends seemed to have justified the means once too often. I wanted to give honour and tradition a solitary triumph over commercial expediency; honesty and sincerity a single victory to savour. I wanted to speak my mind without tailoring my words to their audience and my thoughts to their results. I wanted my own blinkered form of justice. And Nick Seymour gave me the chance to have it.

I’d expected to dislike him. In the event, his self-deprecating humour and affable manner won me over. He had wit and patience. The wit to see I was in the mood to talk. And the patience to let me. He had a long list of questions to ask. I saw them typed out on a sheet of paper in his hand. But he didn’t need to reel them off. I answered them without prompting. I tried-for the very first time-to describe my meeting with Louise Paxton fully and accurately. I had enough sense not to contradict or withdraw anything I’d said in court. But I also had enough courage-or stupidity or recklessness or all three rolled together-to try to define what it was that had lodged in my mind after our fleeting encounter on Hergest Ridge.

After Seymour had gone, evidently pleased with the material he’d got on tape, I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d said to him. Not every word and inflection. I certainly couldn’t imagine how it would look and sound on television several weeks down the road. And I didn’t much care. Not at the time. It was sufficient to have unburdened myself. To have told it as it really was. Or as it had seemed to be that day. Recalled at last. Without distortion or evasion. Without fear of whatever the consequences might be.

I poured myself another drink and toasted the fragile truth that was all I could throw back at Bella and Sir Keith and my hard-hearted siblings. I’d paid my dues to Louise Paxton. Late but in full. I’d cleared my debts. Now I was free to remind others of theirs.