‘You’ll have a job not to miss the boat.’ ‘I shall miss it,’ he said. ‘I am meant to miss it.’ He was shaken by a tiny rage. ‘Give me my brandy.’ He took a long pull at it, with his eyes on the impassive child, the baked street, the vultures moving in the sky like indigestion spots. ‘But if she’s dying . . .’ Mr Tench said. ‘I know these people. She will be no more dying than I am.’ ‘You can do no good.’
