Page 8 of Last Track

"Depends what I find and whether the part exists anywhere this side of Germany."

Peter gave him a preliminary range wide enough to include both inconvenience and financial injury. Galen nodded, thanked him, and asked what he would need to pay for the trailer. His voice stayed level, but his attention fixed on the primer patch beneath Nina's rear window.

Martin knew that look now. Galen was doing sums.

Peter left to arrange the collection. Galen remained beside Nina with one hand against the faded metal, as though the answer might improve if he gave it time.

"You don't have to stand there pretending the estimate changes with reflection," Martin said.

"I'm considering whether music might become more profitable if I stopped doing it professionally."

"Would you stop?"

"No."

"Then that's settled."

Galen looked at him. The corner of his mouth moved, but the worry remained beneath it. "You make complicated things sound annoyingly simple."

"They usually are simple. That doesn't make them easy."

For a moment, Galen said nothing. Then he pushed away from the van and glanced toward the fields. "I can work."

Martin folded his arms. "At what?"

"Anything that doesn't require me to know the breeding history of the sheep involved."

"This isn't a holiday farm."

"I gathered that from the shouting."

"You can't pay Peter by wandering around carrying things."

"I'm asking whether Ashcombe has paid work I can do while I'm here."

"The broken hurdle needs replacing," Martin said. "The north boundary wants checking, and the feed store needs clearing before the next delivery. Jacks handles employment. You agree terms with her before you touch anything."

They returned to the farmhouse. Jacks heard the proposal, named an hourly rate, and opened her ledger before Galen could decide whether to object. When he tried to lower the figure, she looked at him over the top of her glasses until his argument ran out of steam.

"Meals, the shower, the power lead, and the hard standing are ours," she said. "Work is yours. One does not pay for the other."

"I wasn't suggesting they did."

"You were about to."

Hazel placed a wrapped piece of bread beside the ledger and said something in French.

"What did she say?" Galen asked.

"That I enjoy being right," Jacks said.

Hazel corrected her without looking up.

Jacks's mouth tightened at the corners. "That I enjoy being right too much."

Galen signed where she indicated. Jacks wrote down the agreed tasks and told him he would be paid at the end of each working day. The whole exchange took less than five minutes.

Martin watched Galen's shoulders ease when it was done. The reaction told him more than the wage argument had. Galen needed to know the generosity wouldn't return later wearing the shape of a claim. Martin understood that now.