– one town had a new tram network. One place made an entire square blue – the stones, the walls, everything. You take the money you have and find out what you can do, then Brussels puts up some more money, then lots of people come and bring money into the town and it all works brilliantly …’
Arthur turned round slowly from the window. ‘Sorry, but – who are you?’
‘Oh, sorry, hi – I’m Rafe.’
Arthur couldn’t sleep that night. Something felt wrong. Something wrong in the world … Of course all insomnia is melodramatic, he thought, staring at the flashing LED of his alarm clock. Three thirty-two a.m. Insomnia makes you feel you are the only person awake in the entire world. Of course, he could have got up and phoned his half-brother Kay, who lived in Australia and would be more than happy to hear from him in the middle of the afternoon … but no. He felt pinned to the bed, and even thinking nice thoughts about Gwyneth wouldn’t help him drift off.
Finally, in a fit of exasperation, he threw the covers off, got up and stared out of the window. All the windows in the executive estate were dark, every single one. Somebody must be up, he thought. Somebody, anybody, doing something. No babies? No parties? Yet there was nothing but the sodium lights of the tall street-lamps, and the distant hum of the motorway. Nobody moved. Nobody stirred. Arthur looked up to the stars, and imagined the world this quiet a thousand years ago, with everyone asleep when it got dark and up with the sun.
He shivered in the early morning cold, but didn’t go back to bed – now he was up, he actually felt rather peaceful. He liked the idea of the world quiet; full of possibilities and opportunities. Everyone asleep, optimistic about tomorrow – or at least, optimistic enough to sleep. A thought struck him. This would be a good time to see the place, see the absolute raw material he was dealing with – what the streets looked like empty. If this was going to be his town he should go out, take a look around it, examine it from the beginning with no hordes of teenagers or gangs of lads getting in the way, and no cars to block the view across the road. The more he thought about it, the more he felt it was a good idea. Even if, he realized, somewhere not too far away, it sounded like something was howling.
Ten miles away in her mother’s house, Fay had felt pulled awake at the same time as Arthur. Her first day at work hadn’t gone so bad … well, Ross hadn’t groped her. As such. But this was all going to be worth it for the look on Arthur’s face when she and Ross won the bid and left him crying on the street. Yeah. Her face took on a grim satisfaction and she turned over again on the single bed and fell asleep.
The darkness was hinting at dawn. Arthur looked at his own reflection in the window. God, yeah. That really was something howling. It did it again. Arthur reminded himself that wolves no longer roamed the countryside.
Sounded bloody weird, though.
‘We’re all going out at what time in the morning?’ said Gwyneth.
‘No sodding way,’ said Sven.
‘Listen to me,’ said Arthur, then realized he was begging, and that he was trying to remember about this whole respect issue, and took a breath.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘This came to me last night. It’s a great idea. We’re going to go out into the city when there’s nobody else there, and take a good long look at it. See what we’ve got to work with. It’s the only time of day we can do it – after the drunks and before the milkman. Plus, it’ll be fun. Maybe. No, yes it will. It’ll be like an expedition.’
‘Fine by me,’ said Cathy.
‘Great, that’s great!’ said Arthur. ‘Well done.’
‘I usually get up at that time to start the boys’ breakfast. And do the ironing, you know.’
‘I can’t, anyway,’ said Sven. ‘It would interfere with Sandwiches’ digestion.’
‘Yeah – might make it work,’ retorted Arthur.
‘Couldn’t you come without your dog?’ said Gwyneth.
‘No. He sleeps right across me.’
As if to demonstrate, Sandwiches crawled up and lay in the most ungainly fashion across Sven’s lap, a forlorn stubby pair of legs and a single ear hanging down either side.
‘That’s disgusting,’ said Gwyneth, committed vet.
‘I think it would be nice to have something to cuddle at night,’ said Cathy. Then everyone – including her – remembered she was actually married and already shared a bed with her husband and she blushed.
‘Yes, well,’ said Arthur briskly, ‘we’re going to take a look at a blank canvas; imagine what we could do if we set our minds to it. Too late for the drunks and too early for the milkman,’ he repeated. ‘Do milkmen still exist?’
‘You’re thinking of the bogeyman,’ said Gwyneth practically. ‘Milk, yes, bogeys, no.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Sven, with one finger up his nose.
Just then Rafe walked in, the only fresh-looking person in the room. Gwyneth had invited him along for the day to ‘see how the department works’ and he, amazingly, still seemed quite enthusiastic in the moments he could join them between hurrying to the toilet to cope with Cathy’s near-endless coffee provision.
Cathy looked at Rafe with that strange mixture of lust and motherly devotion only women teetering on the brink of menopause can conjure up for fresh-faced young men. ‘Hello, Rafe. More coffee?’
‘No, I’m fine thanks, Mrs P. What’s up?’
‘He’s trying to make us go out in the cold and dark.’
‘Why?’
Sven explained, and Arthur hovered in a corner feeling stupid. He’d planned to get them all whipped up with his enthusiastic oratory. Sven was making it sound as if he was transporting them all to prison ships. Rafe listened closely, nodding his head. The whole room was watching them. Finally, he straightened up.
‘Well – that’s a brilliant idea!’ he said. There was something about his open handsome face that made it look permanently smiling, and it was infectious.
Sven wrinkled up his nose in confusion. ‘Is it?’
‘Yes, don’t you see? Arthur, you’re absolutely right – we can get an idea of how the whole place could be. It will be mystical, magical – the city will be dead, but we – we can bring it alive, through knowing what people miss every day, through the power of our free imaginations – don’t you see?’
Arthur was half pleased, half slightly grumpy. ‘Well, yes – that’s exactly what I was …’
‘Ooh, and I can make soup,’ said Cathy.
‘Not potato soup,’ said Sven. ‘That’s rank.’
‘How rank can a potato be?’ asked Marcus. ‘It’s a potato. That’s like calling bread offensive.’
Arthur stood at the back of the room, quite amazed. Gwyneth looked over to him.
‘They’re arguing about the soup,’ said Arthur quietly to Gwyneth. ‘I think Rafe’s won on points.’
‘Well, it was your idea,’ said Gwyneth. ‘But, incidentally, he didn’t convince me. I don’t want to clatter about on my own in the pitch dark to meet you lot.’
‘Oh, please come,’ said Arthur, realizing suddenly that he was gazing at her.
Marcus, Sven and Cathy had gathered round Rafe, who was pointing things out on a map.
‘I mean,’ he was saying, ‘have you ever looked at the top of the high street? I mean, really looked at it?’
‘I’m usually too busy trying to avoid the syringes,’ said Gwyneth.
‘I’ll pick you up if you like,’ said