The young man offers no explanation for his presence; Paul presumes that he is an estate agent, one of Norris Jones’s people. Presently, he is followed out of the lounge by some other people, a man and a woman. They nod timidly in Paul’s direction, and are ushered into the kitchen. Heather is in there — Paul hears the woman say, ‘Sorry about this,’ and Heather says, ‘That’s all right.’
‘Lovely garden.’ The estate agent.
‘Um, when’s it available?’ the man says, a few moments later. The agent asks Heather when she is moving out, and she says, ‘A month. Just under.’
‘There you go.’
In the hall, overhearing this, with the agent’s sharp sandalwood scent in his nostrils, Paul puts on his jacket. Without looking at him, the viewing party leave the kitchen and start up the stairs to inspect the bedrooms. Several times, he has been woken in the middle of the afternoon by a knot of such people whispering in the doorway.
Andy seems disappointed that Paul is not up for some sort of impromptu stag weekend. He offers to fund it himself with the two hundred pounds that he has paid him. Paul, however, sticks to a single half of lager — he did not even want that, and only agreed to it because Andy looked so spaniel-like and sad. Then he tells him not to be a stranger, and leaves him in the Regency Tavern, remembering on the bus back to Hove that he is still wearing his suit and shoes. He sends him a text message saying that he will pick them up next time he is in London. Then he dumps the flight bag in Lennox Road, puts on his uniform, and hurries to work. In the morning, he is supposed to leave the flight bag in a left-luggage locker at the station. Watt says he will transfer the money when he has seen the tape; first however, exhausted though he is, Paul wants to watch it himself. So with a microwaved shepherd’s pie, still in his uniform, he sits down on the sofa in front of the TV.
For a while the screen fizzes, then suddenly a picture appears. The first thing he notices is that the lens is not perfectly aligned with the spyhole — a wide band on the left of the screen is just black. The rest of the image shows the surface of the table and Martin’s suited torso, his shirt front and tie; the lower part of his face — and only the lower part — makes occasional appearances. This worries Paul until he sees the moment — some way in — when Martin lowers his whole face into the picture to sniff the punnet of fruit in front of him, thus providing an undeniable positive ID.
The film opens with Andy saying, ‘… at the fruit.’ He has obviously just taken it out and he hands the punnet to Martin. Martin examines it — he seems to eat one or two berries. Then he says, ‘So you use polytunnels, yeah?’ The voices are slightly muffled.
‘Yeah,’ Andy says.
Martin asks some more questions — in answer to which Andy says that the strawberries, Elsantas, will be supplied in 227-gram punnets; that he has a tonne of fruit in total; and that an arranged sale has unfortunately fallen through. It is at the end of this exchange that Martin’s face makes its short appearance on-screen. There is something almost lewd about the expert way in which he sniffs the berries — perhaps it is his fluttering eyes, his slight smile. Then he says, ‘Well.’
‘So,’ Andy says, ‘would you be interested?’
Martin laughs in a way that suggests he thinks his interlocutor is something of an idiot. This is not surprising. From the start, ‘Andrew Smith’ has presented an image of extraordinary innocence and simple-mindedness. Which is perfect, of course — he seems exactly the sort of person who would find themselves forced to offload a tonne of fruit for a painfully low price. And it is only now that Paul sees quite how perfect Andy was for the job. He told him to try not to sound too posh; he does not seem to be trying, and in fact his plummy voice is only enhancing the overall effect. He sounds soft, privileged, unschooled in the painful knocks and upsets of economic self-propulsion. ‘Would I be interested?’ Martin muses. ‘That rather depends, doesn’t it?’
And a few seconds later Andy says, ‘What does it depend on?’
With a forkful of shepherd’s pie poised to enter his mouth, Paul smiles. ‘What do you think?’ Martin says.
‘Money?’ Andy, after a long pause.
‘Got it in one.’
‘All right. So … Um …’
‘How much?’
‘I was thinking …’ Andy says. ‘Two hundred pence a kilo?’
The price is obviously lower than Martin had expected. Suspiciously low. The situation is suddenly tense. Perhaps sensing this, Andy says, ‘I really need to offload this fruit.’ And for the first time he sounds not foolish but insincere.
‘There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?’ Martin says.
Ignoring the steaming strata of mash and mince on his knees, Paul stares transfixed at the screen. The players have left the script. Nevertheless, what Andy should do — what Paul himself would do, what any salesman would do — is obvious. For a long time Andy says nothing. Judging from the quantity of smoke pouring into the image, he is puffing furiously on a Marlboro Light. Martin makes a dry, disapproving sound.
‘Like what?’ Andy says finally.
Paul laughs out loud. It is not at all what he had in mind; it is impossible to imagine a more fumblingly idiotic line. And yet it is thus a masterstroke — instantly quashing Martin’s suspicion that Andy might be something other than a total imbecile.
‘You tell me,’ Martin says.
‘The thing is,’ Andy says quietly, ‘we’re not … um.’ He seems to be struggling. ‘Oh what is it?’ he wonders aloud.
‘I don’t know,’ Martin says. ‘What?’
‘BNC audited?’
‘Do you mean BRC audited?’
‘Um. Yeah.’
‘Right. Anything else?’
After a minute Andy says, ‘You know the Assured Production Scheme …’
‘You’re not part of it.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Um.’ A pause. ‘We’re just not.’
‘What do you mean, you’re just not?’ Martin says, very suspiciously.
There is a long silence.
Then Andy says, ‘Some of our pickers haven’t got their work visas yet.’ Watching the scene on television, Paul is sure that this is an attempt to move on to a new subject, not an answer to Martin’s question; Martin, however, seems willing to take it as one. He laughs. ‘Well, no wonder you’re not in the scheme,’ he says.
‘No, we’re not.’
‘So you’re not BRC audited,’ Martin says. ‘You’re not in the APS …’ He is marking the points off on his long fingers. ‘And you’re using illegal immigrants to pick your fruit.’
‘Yah,’ Andy says, hesitantly. And then — ‘Would that be a problem?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Um. Would it be a problem in principle?’
First, Martin simply restates the question. ‘Would it be problem in principle,’ he says. And he sighs. Then he inspects the fruit. This time, though, instead of lowering his face, he lifts the punnet. ‘These are nice fruit,’ he says eventually, having eaten several berries.
‘Yeah, they are,’ Andy eagerly agrees.
‘How much did you say you had?’
‘Um, a tonne. Yah.’
‘And you want two hundred pence a kilo?’
‘Two hundred pence …’
‘So two thousand pounds the tonne.’
‘Um …’
Twice, Martin thrums his fingers on the trompe l’oeil malachite of the tabletop. Though his face is out of shot, the fingers are eloquently expressive of tense vacillation. Then he says, ‘Fifteen hundred.’
Andy sighs stagily. There is the sound of a lighter being lit, and waves of fine blue smoke fall into the picture. ‘What about —’