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week,’ she said, as if that would get her let off. A plea of mitigation. ‘Daddy’s going to give her driving lessons. He said better he taught her himself than someone else and not do it right.’
    ‘Mrs Wilding, I really think we ought to get your husband in.’
    ‘I’ll go,’ she said blankly, and then looked bewildered as she found she couldn’t get up.
    So Atherton went.
    The question of how a devoted gardener coped with a contiguous wilderness of weeds was answered as he stepped out. The chain-link fencing between this garden and the wild strip had been taken down, and the wilderness tamed. Right at the far end, the blue-painted eight-foot builder’s hoarding that cut off the pavement and road beyond was disguised by the original hedge and trees of the demolished house, now grown high and thick. They overtopped the hoarding, and from the road must have given the impression that nothing had changed in here. But to either side, new-looking six-foot-six larch-lap shut off the neighbours, and inside these barriers the extra bit had been incorporated into number two’s original garden. It was, of course, slightly illegal, but Atherton thought Slider at least wouldn’t have blamed them. Who was hurt by it? The land had been left to rot through twenty years of political dither and budget shenanigans, and as a country boy Slider hated the waste of land. Better, he would think, that the Wildings – or Mr Wilding, probably, because Mrs Wilding with her manicured hands did not look like a gardener – made use of it in neat vegetable beds and grew cabbages and runners and carrots and – what was that? It looked like coriander. Coriander ?
    In the middle of the far end, up against the riotous hedge – it had been privet, but buddleia and elder had seeded themselves into it and waved gaily out of the top – there was a large, stout garden shed, with the door slightly ajar. Not wishing to frighten the occupant by suddenly appearing in the doorway, Atherton called out, ‘Mr Wilding,’ as he approached, and they reached the door simultaneously from opposite directions.
    ‘Who are you?’ the man demanded, with justifiable surprise and faint irritation.
    He was a little taller than Atherton, and a lot bigger, bulky about the shoulders, thick in the middle in the manner of an athlete – a rugby player perhaps – gone to seed. He was evidently quite a bit older than his wife, though it was hard to tell by how much. He was well preserved and might have been anything from mid-fifties to mid-sixties. His face was large-featured and had been handsome – they must have been a golden couple, these Wildings – and his straight grey hair was bushily thick and strong, giving the impression of irrepressible growth that would have to be pruned back hard every few weeks. He was wearing grey slacks and a dark-blue check short-sleeved shirt, and he was holding a large screwdriver in one hand. The hands were grey with working dirt, thick-fingered and scarred with cuts and nicks of various ages, the hands of a hands-on workman. Atherton guessed carpenter: his bifocal glasses bore a surface sheen of fine dust; there was a delicate curl, like a feather, of a wood shaving clinging to his trousers, and the unmistakable tang of sawdust was in the air.
    ‘I’m sorry if I startled you,’ Atherton said, and introduced himself.
    Over the man’s shoulder, he caught a glimpse of the shed’s interior, well fitted-out as a workshop. There was a good, high bench with cramps and a vice, a heavy plane lying on its surface, and a drill, plugged in to a long strip of sockets behind; shelves loaded with jars and boxes of screws, nails, Rawlplugs, hooks, hinges and so on; a pegboard on the wall with tools neatly hanging. The work in progress was on the bench – a wooden railway engine, about the size of a child’s pedal car, partly constructed and lacking wheels yet.
    Wilding intercepted the glance. ‘I make toys for the Lions Club,’ he said