'The oil was quite clean,' Terry said.

Another silence.

Basil Rudd said, 'If you drain the new oil out again, and take the engine apart, you'll find whatever the stopper was that Terry pushed through the sump, but that's a very expensive procedure and not justified, I don't think.'

Another silence.

'I'll ask my father,' I said.

We trooped back to the office and I reported the last-resort expensive solution of dismantling the engine.

'Do nothing. Stay where you are,' my father commanded. 'Just do nothing, and wait. Let me speak to Basil Rudd.'

The chit-chat went on for several minutes. Basil Rudd said he thought the boy meaning me was making a hullabaloo over nothing much, but in the end he shrugged and said, 'Yes, yes, all right.' He put down the receiver and said to me, 'Your father is sending someone for the Range Rover. He wants you to stay here for now.'

Terry muttered that he had done a proper service on the Range Rover and no one could tell him different. Basil Rudd gave me a look of disfavour and said he couldn't waste any more time, he had mountains of paperwork to see to. I didn't exactly apologise, but I said I would wait outside in the Range Rover and walked peacefully across to where it stood in the wire-fenced compound. I disarmed the alarms, opened the door and sat behind the driving wheel, going through the systems and reading the instruction book.

I waited for over an hour until Basil Rudd appeared at the window beside me. I opened the door, stepped down to the ground and met the man accompanying the garage owner, who announced with a glint of irony that he had come to solve the mystery of the missing sump-plug. His name, he said, was Foster Fordham. He looked more like a lawyer than a mechanic: no blue collar to his grey and white pinstriped shirt or his neat dark suit. He had straight, dark, well-brushed hair, light-framed glasses and polished black shoes.

Basil Rudd, turning away, asked Foster Fordham to report to him in the office before leaving and, watching Rudd's departing back, Fordham, apparently bored to inertia, informed me that he was here to do my father a big favour, as normally he was a consultant engineer, not a hands-on minion.

I began to explain about the gunshot, but he interrupted that he knew all about it, and all about the missing plug.

'I work in car-racing circles,' he said. 'My field is sabotage.'

I no doubt looked as inadequate as I felt in face of his quiet assurance.

He said, 'I understand that yesterday you were going to drive this vehicle from here to Quindle. How far is that?'

'About twelve miles.'

'Dual carriageway? Flat straight roads?'

'Mostly single lane, a lot of sharp corners, and some of it uphill.'

He nodded. He said we would now take the road to Quindle and he would drive.

Perplexed but trusting I climbed into the passenger seat beside him and listened to the healthy purr of the engine as he started up and drove off out of the garage compound onto the ring road round Hoopwestern, bound for Quindle. He drove fast in silence, watching the instrument panel as intently as the road, and said nothing until we had reached the top of the long steep incline halfway to what I thought was our destination. He stopped up there, however, and, still without explaining, did a U-turn and drove straight back to Rudd's garage.

Cars flashed past, appearing fast towards us from blind corners, as they had the day before. Fordham drove faster than I'd felt safe doing in Crystal's car, but if his field was racing, that was hardly surprising.

At the garage he told Terry to drain the engine oil into a clean container. Terry said the oil was too hot to handle. Fordham agreed to wait a little, but insisted that the oil should still be hot when it was drained.

'Why?' Terry asked. 'It's clean. I did the oil change yesterday.'

Fordham didn't answer. Eventually, wearing heavy gloves, Terry unscrewed the sump-plug and let the hot oil drain out as requested into a clean plastic five-gallon container. Fordham had him put the container into the luggage space at the back of the Range Rover and then suggested he should screw the sump-plug back into place and refill the engine with fresh cool oil.

Terry signalled exasperation with his eyebrows but did as he was asked. Mr Fordham, calm throughout, then told me that he had finished his investigation and suggested we say farewell to Basil Rudd and return in the Range Rover to my father's headquarters. Basil Rudd, of course, wanted to know reasons. Fordham told him with great politeness that he would receive a written report, and meanwhile not to worry, all was well.

Fordham drove composedly to the car park outside my father's headquarters and, with me faithfully following, walked into the offices where my father was sitting with Mervyn Teck discussing tactics.

My father stood at the sight of us and limped outside with Fordham to the Range Rover. Through the window I watched them talking earnestly, then Fordham took the plastic container of oil out of the Range Rover, put it into the boot of a Mercedes standing nearby, climbed into the driver's seat, and neatly departed.

My father, returning, told Mervyn cheerfully that there was now nothing wrong with the Range Rover and it could safely be driven all round the town.

We finally set off. I drove, feeling my way cautiously through the gears, learning the positive message of the four-wheel drive. My father sat beside me, accompanied by his walking stick. Mervyn Teck, carrying a megaphone, sat in the rear seat, squeezing his lumpy knees together to allow more space for two volunteer helpers, thin bittersweet Lavender and motherly Faith.

The rear-seaters knew their drill from much past practice, and I with eye-opening wonderment became acquainted with the hardest graft in politics, the door-to-door begging for a 'yes' vote.

The first chosen residential street consisted of identical semi-detached houses with clipped garden-defining hedges and short concrete drives up to firmly closed garage doors. Some of the front windows were adorned with stickers simply announcing 'BETHUNE': he had worked this land before us.

'This road is awash with floaters,' Mervyn said with rare amusement. 'Let's see what we can do about turning the tide our way.'

Directing me to stop the vehicle, he untucked himself from his seatbelt and, standing in the open air, began to exhort the invisible residents through the reverberating megaphone, to vote JULIARD JULIARD, JULIARD JULIARD, JULIARD JULIARD.

I found it odd to have my name bouncing off the house fronts, but the candidate himself nodded with smiling approval.

Lavender and Faith followed Mervyn out of the car, each of them carrying a bundle of stickers printed JULIARD JULIARD in slightly larger letters than in slightly larger letters than BETHUNE BETHUNE. Taking one side of the road each they began ringing front door bells and knocking knockers and, where they got no response, tucking a sticker through the letter-box.

If a door was opened to them they smiled and pointed to the Range Rover from where my father would limp bravely up the garden path to put on his act, at which he was clearly terrific. I crawled up the road in low gear, my father limped uncomplainingly, Mervyn activated his megaphone and Lavender and Faith wasted not a leaflet. In our slow wake we left friendly waves and a few JULIARDS JULIARDS in windows. By the end of the street I was bored to death, but it seemed Lavender and Faith both revelled in persuasion tactics and were counting the road a victory for their side. in windows. By the end of the street I was bored to death, but it seemed Lavender and Faith both revelled in persuasion tactics and were counting the road a victory for their side.

After two more long sweeps through suburbia (in which at least one baby got kissed) we respited for a late sandwich lunch in a pub.

'If ever you get invited into someone's home,' my father said (as he had been invited five or six times that morning), 'you go into the sitting-room and you say, "Oh, what an attractive room!" even if you think it's hideous.'

Lavender, Faith and Mervyn all nodded, and I said, 'That's cynical.'

'You've a lot to learn.'

We were sitting by a window. I looked through it to the Range Rover parked outside in plain view and reckoned that one way or another I actually had learned a lot that morning, and that what I'd learned had probably saved a good many votes.

My father, as if following my thoughts, said lightly, 'We'll talk about it later,' but it wasn't until we were changing before going to the Town Hall debate that he would discuss Foster Fordham.

By then I'd persuaded Mervyn to arrange a securely locked overnight garage for the Range Rover, backed by my casual parent who said mildly, 'The boy's got a point, Mervyn. It might be more satisfactory for us all. No harm, anyway, in keeping it safe from thieves,' and as the car belonged to my father himself and not to the party, he had his way.

'Foster Fordham wasn't sure how much you understood,' he said, combing through his tightly curled dark hair and leaving it much as it had been before. 'He was surprised you didn't ask him questions.'

'Terry the mechanic did ask. Fordham wouldn't answer.'

'So what do you conclude it was all about?'

'Well... if you or I or anyone else had driven the Range Rover yesterday towards Quindle, it would quite likely have crashed. Or, at least, I think so.'

My father put down his comb and with stillness said, 'Go on.'

I said, 'I do think the bullet that came so near us was deliberately aimed at you, and even if it hadn't killed you, it would have stopped your campaign if you'd been badly injured. But all the town could see that all you'd done was twist your ankle. So if anyone was looking around for another way to put a stopper on you, there was the Range Rover, just standing there unguarded all night in the car park, conspicuously yours and painted with silver and gold to attract attention.'

'Yes.'

'When I was taking driving lessons, which was mostly in the Easter holidays, I read a lot of motoring magazines '

'I thought you were supposed to be revising for your A levels, your university entrance exams.'

'Um... I was riding for Sir Vivian, too. I mean, I can think think in algebra. I just had to make sure I understood all the exam questions that have been set before, set in the past. I don't mean to sound big-headed, really I don't, but I had sort of a lot of spare mental time, so I read the motor magazines. I didn't know you had a Range Rover but I read about them. I read about their anti-thief devices. So when your Range Rover had stood quiet in the car park all night, and you had the only keys to disarm the screech alarms, then if anyone had done any harm it had to have been from outside... or underneath...' I tapered off, feeling silly, but he waved for me to go on. in algebra. I just had to make sure I understood all the exam questions that have been set before, set in the past. I don't mean to sound big-headed, really I don't, but I had sort of a lot of spare mental time, so I read the motor magazines. I didn't know you had a Range Rover but I read about them. I read about their anti-thief devices. So when your Range Rover had stood quiet in the car park all night, and you had the only keys to disarm the screech alarms, then if anyone had done any harm it had to have been from outside... or underneath...' I tapered off, feeling silly, but he waved for me to go on.

'I thought the brake fluid might have been drained so that the brakes wouldn't work,' I said. 'I thought the tyres might have been slashed so that you'd have a blow-out when you were going fast. Things come whizzing round corners on that road to Quindle... you wouldn't have much chance in a car out of control, but a Range Rover is pretty well built like a tank so you you might be unhurt in a crash, but you might kill the people you crashed might be unhurt in a crash, but you might kill the people you crashed into into... or at least injure them badly... and that would stop you being elected, wouldn't it?'

My father took his time in moving, and in answering. 'It wasn't the brakes or the tyres,' he said.

'It was the engine oil.'

He nodded. 'Tell me what you think.'

I said, 'I think Fordham knew what was wrong before he came. He said he was an expert in sabotage in motor racing, and nothing about the Range Rover surprised him. It must have seemed pretty elementary to him.'

My father, smiling, said, 'I've known him a long time. So, what did he tell me?'

This is some sort of test, I thought. I could only guess at answers; but anyhow, I guessed. 'Someone unscrewed the sump-plug and removed it, and stuffed up the hole so that the oil couldn't all run out.'

'Go on.'

'The stopper was something that would fall out later, so the oil would all drain out of the engine when it was going along, and the engine would seize up solid, and as it's a four-wheel drive you wouldn't be able to steer and you would be like a block of stone in the middle of the road.'

'Not bad.'

'But Terry the mechanic pushed the substitute plug right through into the sump like a cork in a bottle, which I honestly don't think he should have done, and screwed in a new plug before he refilled with clean oil... like I told you on the phone.'

'Mm. So what was the substitute plug made of?'

I'd been thinking about it while we drove round the suburbs. I said hesitantly, 'To begin with I thought it would be something chemical that could react with the oil and make it like jelly, or something, so that it couldn't be pumped round the pistons and they would seize up in the cylinders, but that can't have been right as the plug was in the sump when Foster Fordham drove fast towards Quindle and deliberately made the engine very hot, and he insisted on Terry draining out the clean oil again when it was still hot, so I thought that perhaps the temporary stopper had melted melted, and Fordham has taken the oil away to see what was in it.'

'Yes,' my father said.

'Because if it had melted away in the sump drain-hole when we were on our way to Quindle yesterday, it would have taken only about a minute for all the oil to drain out and ruin the engine. When the oil was hot this morning, when Terry drained it, it ran out as thin as water.'

'Fordham says it's an old trick. So old, it's never attempted now in motor racing.'

'Well... what was the plug made of?'

'What would you think?'

I hesitated. 'It had to be pretty simple. I mean, almost spur-of-the-moment, after the bullet had missed.'

'So?'

'So how about shoving a candle up the spout, and cutting it off? How about wax wax?'

My father peacefully tied his unexuberantly striped tie. 'Foster Fordham,' he said, 'will let us know.'

It was extraordinary, I thought, as we entered the Town Hall for the Bethune face-to-face confrontation, how many people I'd come to recognise in only two days.

Orinda was there, torturing herself, wearing a very short gold dress with a black feather boa that twisted round her neck and arms like the snake it was named for, and demanded admiring attention. Her green eyes flashed. An emerald and diamond bracelet sparkled on her wrist. No one could be unaware of her vibrant attendance.

Apace behind her, as ever, stood her shadow, whose name I remembered with an effort was A. L. Wyvern. 'A. L.', I thought, 'Anonymous Lover' Wyvern. He had looked uninteresting in a dinner jacket at the Sleeping Dragon dinner: in the Town Hall, in a grey suit and a blue shirt, he filled space without making an impression.

Large Mrs Kitchens, eagle-eyed, in navy blue with purple frills, held tight to 'my Leonard's' arm and succeeded in preventing him from beaming his sickly moustache into Orinda's airspace. Mrs Kitchens gave me a cheery wave and a leer and I would not not let her embarrass me. let her embarrass me.

Mervyn, of course, had arrived with Crystal at his side to take notes. The three witches were helping to seat people, and Dearest Polly, at the sight of us, made an enthusiastic little run in our direction, and bore off my father like a trophy to show him the lectern behind which he was to stand on the platform. Dearest Polly, it seemed, was stage-managing the evening.

As if with a flourish of trumpets the Bethune camp arrived. There was a stir and a rustle in the hall and a sprinkle of clapping. Hooray for adultery, I thought.

Paul Bethune, seen for the first time, was a portly and portentous-looking fifty or so with a double chin and the thinning hair that might in the end confound his chances more thoroughly than a love-child. He was accompanied by a busy Mervyn Teck lookalike, who was indeed his agent, and by a nervous woman who looked at the world in general in upward glances from under her eyebrows. She was shown to a seat in the front row of spectators and Dearest Polly, beckoning to me strongly, introduced me to Paul Bethune's wife, Isobel.

Isobel emitted severe discomfort at having me to sit beside her, but I gave her my best harmless grin and told her she couldn't want to avoid being there more than I did myself.

'I've only just left school,' I said. 'I don't know anything about politics. I understand this is the third campaign for you and Mr Bethune, so you probably don't find it as confusing as I do.'

'Oh dear,' she said. 'You're such a child, you can't possibly know...'

'I'm nearly eighteen.'

She smiled weakly, then suddenly stiffened to immobility, her face pale with a worse disaster than my proximity.

I said, 'What's the matter, Mrs Bethune?'

'That man,' she murmured. 'Oh God.'

I looked where she was looking, and saw Basil Rudd.

'That's not Usher Rudd, the newspaperman,' I said, understanding. 'That's his cousin. That's Basil Rudd. He mends cars.'

'It's him him. That beastly writer.'

'No, Mrs Bethune. It's his cousin. They look alike, but that's Basil.'

To my absolute horror, she began to cry. I looked around urgently for help but Polly was elbow-deep in wires to microphones and television cameras, and Paul Bethune, eyeing his wife's distress, turned away deliberately with a sharply displeased grimace.

Unkind bastard, I thought. Stupid, too. A show of fondness might have earned him votes.

Isobel Bethune stumbled to her feet, searching unsuccessfully in her well-worn black handbag for something to mop up tears, and I, clumsily but with pity, offered her an arm to hold on to while I cleared a path towards the door.

She talked all the way in broken half-intelligible explanations. 'Paul insisted I came... I didn't want to, but he said I might as well stab him in the back if I didn't... and now he'll be so furious furious, but what does he expect me to do after all those pictures in the paper of him and that girl... and she had nothing on, well, next to nothing. He wants me to smile and pretend I don't mind, but he makes me look a fool and I suppose I am, but I didn't know about that girl until it was in the paper, and he doesn't deny it. He says what did I expect...'

We went through the entrance hall and out into the fresh air with everyone arriving and staring at Isobel's tears with hungry curiosity. At seven-thirty in the evening merciful dusk was still some time ahead, so I veered away from the entrance and she, wholly without resistance, came with me round the nearest corner.

The Town Hall formed one of the sides of the cobbled square. The Sleeping Dragon took up an adjoining side, with shops (and party headquarters) along the other two. Wide alleyways, that once had been open roads, led away from every corner, and on one of them lay the main Town Hall entrance doors. Along the side of the Town Hall that faced onto the square, there was a sort of cloister a covered walkway with pillars and benches giving shelter and rest. Isobel Bethune crumpled onto one of the benches and, after a craven moment of wanting to ditch her, I sat beside her and wondered what to say.

I needn't have worried. She compulsively went on sobbing and pouring out her unhappiness and resentment at the unfairness of things. I half listened, watching the wretchedness that twisted her lipsticked mouth, and seeing in her swelling eyes and grey-flecked hair that not long ago she'd been quite pretty, before Usher Rudd had taken a photographic sledgehammer to her complacent world.