I don't know where he's taking me, but we walk together down the High Street in the sun, weaving our way between the tourists in wide curves.

'Do you think you could not hold my arm like that? I feel like you're arresting me.' He peels my fingers away from his elbow.

'Oh. Sorry.'

He looks down at me, and for a second I think he's going to say something else. Then he links his arm through mine. I don't know if he's being nice or taking the piss, but somehow I don't care.

We walk in silence. I concentrate on keeping in step with him. It's hard, because he's taller than me. I feel giggly and excited and strange. For a while I think I must be really, properly drunk. Then I realise I'm happy.

To be honest, I might be drunk as well, because it's only when we're outside the church that I realise where we must be going. I look up at him, but he doesn't meet my gaze. He steers me down the path into the churchyard, towards the back of the church and round the yew tree. There are a couple of tourists in the far corner, talking quietly a woman staring at the headstone, the other one with his face raised to the sky. I open my mouth, but there's something about the greenness everywhere and the silent graves that makes me shut it again without saying anything. The man takes a photo. The woman says something and they both laugh. She's got a tiny bright yellow flower behind her ear. They start to walk away, as if they've looked for long enough, and the man takes her hand. Then she turns back and flicks the flower on to the grave. It spins as it drops, like a bright yellow propeller.

Oliver is watching them. There's a crease between his eyebrows. He looks like someone reading an exam paper.

But even once they've left, he doesn't go over to the headstone. He disentangles his arm from mine and takes a couple of steps in the other direction, until he's looking at the War Memorial. He says, 'What's your surname?'

'Hope.'

He smiles at me unexpectedly, then looks back at the memorial. 'No Hopes. No Gardners either.'

'Why should there be?'

He shrugs. 'I always check. Don't you?'

'Every time I go past a war memorial?' I'm being sarcastic, but he nods. 'Er . . . no. I'm pretty sure I haven't died for my country. Is that what we came here to find out?'

I shouldn't have said that, because he stops smiling. 'No.' He tilts his head towards the dark headstone where the tourists were. 'No, that's what we came for.'

I stand and wait. He walks over to it slowly, and stands looking down at the grass and the tiny yellow flower. His hand beckons me over.

HUGO JOHN MARTIN.

18941936 WATCH YE THEREFORE:.

FOR YE KNOW NOT WHEN.

THE MASTER OF THE HOUSE COMETH.

The silence in this part of the churchyard has a different quality to it: fragile, echoing, like glass. I shake my head and tell myself that's stupid, but I can't get it out of my mind. It's like the air in this corner is thinner. It's harder to breathe.

I say, 'It's not exactly beloved husband and father, is it?'

Oliver smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. 'He wasn't anyone's husband. Or father.'

'Oh. I just meant it's not very . . . comforting. The watch ye therefore bit. It's a weird thing to choose.'

'I think my grandfather chose ' He stops. He makes a quiet, shocked sound, like someone's just punched him in the stomach.

'Oliver?' In a distant part of my brain I notice that it's the first time I've said his name. I have a stupid, embarrassing desire to say it again.

'My grandfather. Chose it. He inherited everything, so I guess he ' He reaches out as if he's going to lean on the top of the headstone, and then draws his hand back quickly. 'I forgot that. He must have Jesus. I suppose that means he God, he knew ' He's slurring his words.

'Are you OK?'

'Yes. Yes, I'm fine. I something just occurred to ' He looks at the gravestone, and his mouth moves silently. The look on his face is too complicated to read, as if he's shocked and angry and afraid and somehow rueful, like someone who's run for a bus and missed it by half a second. As if the epitaph is telling him something he wishes he'd known before.

He starts to laugh, painfully, as if someone's told a joke at his expense.

I say, 'Er . . . Oliver?'

'He knew,' he says, as if I'll know what he's talking about. 'My grandfather knew. The master of the house cometh . . .' He rubs his face, laughing through his fingers. 'But what the hell how ?'

The silence grows in the space between his words. It isn't fragile any more: it feels heavy, merciless, like snow.

Through his hands, Oliver says, 'Of course. How simple. He knew because because he '

I wait. When he uncovers his face again he looks calm, like a mask.

'Right,' he says.

'Right,' I say, mimicking him.

'Right.' He looks back, just once, at the headstone.

WATCH YE THEREFORE:.

FOR YE KNOW NOT . . .

Then he walks away. He waits for me at the lychgate, but although he gives me a kind of smile he doesn't take my arm again.

He leads me back the way we came, down the High Street. At first I think we're going back to Tyme's End, but when we pass the cracked bit of wall, instead of clambering over it, Oliver keeps on walking, a few steps ahead of me, and we follow the road as it winds away to the right and the wall disappears behind a screen of trees and bracken. It's quiet, and the woods rustle around us, full of little noises from the undergrowth. I look up and the leaves are like stained glass, blurred out of shape by the sunlight, all green and gold. I want to ask Oliver where we're going now, but it seems wrong to break the silence. He's striding ahead, his head down, and I have to gallop for a couple of paces to catch up with him.

'It's beautiful,' I say, breathless.

He frowns, as if I've said something in a foreign language, and then looks round at the web of sunshine on the road, the high trees. 'Yes,' he says. 'I guess it is.'

There's the swish of a car, and I look round, but it's coming from a crossroads ahead of us. Oliver pauses for a moment, listening. I stand by his side and he glances at me. He looks paler than he did before, preoccupied. For the first time it's easy to believe that he's twenty-seven.

'You'd better walk behind me,' he says. 'This road is dangerous. If a car comes '

'I'm not a kid.'

I think he's going to argue with me, but he doesn't. He shrugs and keeps on walking. I feel a perverse surge of disappointment.

We turn left. This road is straight, flat, a wide band of sun-dappled grey narrowing to a point between trees. Oliver speeds up, still walking with his head bowed, his shoulders incongruously hunched as if it's pissing with rain. His hands are in his pockets. The breeze presses his T-shirt into him so that I can see the shape of his back. He breaks into a kind of jog, without taking his hands out of his pockets. He's running in an odd, awkward way, as if he's going up a very steep hill. As if he doesn't want time to think about where he's going.

Then he stops. He leans forward to catch his breath. There's a little shadow of damp in the small of his back. I can feel the sweat sliding down the back of my neck too, like fingers. I'm thirsty.

'Over there,' he says, clearing his throat and tilting his head towards a little clearing a few metres from the edge of the road.

He doesn't move. I look at him, then pick my way through the bracken, stepping over fallen branches and avoiding bits of bramble. The stone is a kind of flattened prism of sandstone, not quite a plaque. H. J. MARTIN WAS FOUND DEAD ON THIS SPOT, 21st JUNE 1936.

I stand in front of it, not knowing what to do. If I were with Mum or Dad I'd say, 'Big deal.' I look round at Oliver, hoping that he'll say something.

He doesn't meet my gaze. He's got a distant expression on his face, like he's listening to something I can't hear. He says, 'No one knows what happened.'

'I thought it was a motorcycle accident.'

His eyes flick to mine and away again. 'It was. But he shouldn't have come off. He wasn't going particularly fast. He knew the road, and it's straight and level, and there wasn't any traffic. It was early in the morning, but it was probably already light. No one even knows where he was going.'

I'm about to say, 'So?' but I manage to stop myself. I say instead, 'People have accidents. They just do.'

'Yes,' he says, but he doesn't sound like he's agreeing.

I say, as gently as I can, 'Does it matter?'

'What really happened? Does that matter?' He takes a step towards the memorial stone. 'I don't know.' He reaches out, even though the stone isn't close enough to touch. 'You said, about your real mother if you knew, one way or the other . . .'

'That's ' I breathe in. 'That's different.'

'Why?'

'Because that matters to me.' I wish he'd look at me. 'She was my mother, and this is different. This happened seventy years ago. He'd be dead by now anyway. And it's not like you knew him. Everyone who knew him must be dead by now.'

He stays where he is. I don't even know if he's listening to me. The trees whisper around us. I wish I knew what he was thinking. I wish I knew why he'd brought me here.

All of a sudden he twists to look at me, so quickly that twigs crack under his feet. His eyes don't quite focus on my face. 'If you knew, for sure, one way or the other suppose you knew, for sure, that she'd killed herself . . .'

I say, 'Yes?'

But he doesn't finish what he was going to say. He says slowly, 'I think it does matter. I wish it didn't. But I think it does.'

It's hard to keep track of what he's saying. 'You mean, if my mother had ?'

'No.' A split-second shake of his head. 'Of course, but that's not what I mean.' He gestures at the memorial. H. J. MARTIN WAS FOUND DEAD ON THIS SPOT. 'Suppose it wasn't an accident? Suppose it happened because '

He stops. He shakes his head again, as if there's an insect buzzing in his ears.

I swallow. The heat surrounds me, suddenly oppressive. My mouth tastes stale and sour, tacky with sugar. I say, 'Shall we go back? I'm thirsty.'

It's as if he hasn't heard me. Maybe he hasn't.

'My grandfather knew H. J. Martin. They were friends. My grandfather was Martin's heir,' he says, and his words are quiet, precise, without any trace of the American accent he had before. 'He inherited Tyme's End, and and a lot of money. A huge amount of money. And he '

There's a pause, filled with birdsong and a siren from a long way away. I feel dizzy, unreal, as if I'm not really here. And Oliver is staring into the middle distance as if someone's standing in front of him.

'I think my grandfather murdered H. J. Martin,' he says.

There's another split-second silence. He turns to me and he's smiling, like he knows that what he just said is ridiculous, melodramatic, unbelievable.

I say, 'Er . . .'

And then suddenly he spins on his heel, ducks behind a tree, and I hear him vomiting.

V.

I don't know what to do. I push my hands into the back pockets of my jeans and kick at the bracken, so that if he looks round he'll see that I'm not watching. He coughs wetly, and I hear liquid splattering on to the ground. There's a pause, and I think it's over. Then he gasps and makes a kind of rasping, barking noise. He spits, and makes another noise, halfway between a sigh and a groan. I look at him, in spite of myself, and he's wiping his mouth on his forearm. He glances up but I can't tell if he's seen me or not. He pushes his hair off his forehead with his other hand, and it sticks up, clumpy with sweat. He stands up, bracing himself against the tree. He says, 'God. Excuse me.'

'Are you all right?'

He smiles, coughs, and spits again. He digs at the earth with his toe, wincing. 'Of course. Can't you tell?'

'OK,' I say. 'Stupid question.'

'I didn't mean that,' he says, but it doesn't sound like he cares much, one way or the other. 'Look let's go.'

I nod. He walks past me and down the road the way we came. I follow him. I feel faintly sick too, as if it's contagious. I want a drink of water. My T-shirt is sticking to me.

'I'm sorry,' he says, without looking round, so the words are almost blown away by the warm breeze. 'I shouldn't have brought you here. It was a really bad idea.'

I hurry to catch up with him, feeling the sweat break out on my forehead. 'Wait. Will you wait, please, Oliver '