–––––––– “If you’re so interested in the Plenderleiths, why don’t you invite them over for a drink?” Gordon Baverstock ignored his wife. He was standing by the picture window and gazing down at a half-timbered house and an untended garden that ran down to the river’s edge. If it were not for the humidity, it could have been autumn, not early August. For almost a fortnight, grey-flannel clouds had covered the sky, a moist morass always at the point of precipitation, but never yielding more than a sense there was rain in the air. A proper thunderstorm was needed to clear away the closeness and allow the blue to break through. “Perhaps.” “Perhaps? Don’t overdo the decisiveness, will you, dear? Something might actually happen.” He turned towards his wife. She was a small woman with pinche