Peter and Charlie came up to hear Garth saying, ‘Well, whose shout is it, then?’

As if by pre-arrangement first Alun and Malcolm, then Charlie and Peter looked at each other. It fell to Malcolm, as sometimes in the past, to say what everyone else was thinking and not saying.

‘Sorry, Garth, I’m not with you. How do you mean, shout? We’re not in the pub now.’

‘No, boy, of course not, of course not,’ said Garth, laying his hand reassuringly on Malcolm’s arm. ‘Just with the prices things are these days we simply can’t afford unrestricted hospitality. Of course we’d like to, but we can’t. So?’ He sent round an interrogative glance.

‘All right, if it’s shouts we’re on to, I’ll shout first.’ Alun still looked very much astonished.

‘Good for you. Double scotch, is it?’ Garth tipped the bottle twice while the rest of the company paid close attention. ‘Right. Help yourself to water or soda.’

‘You don’t mean to say they’re free? Oh, goody bloody goody, what?’

Garth nodded without speaking, his eyes on a pocket calculator that had appeared on the sideboard before him.

‘Mind you don’t forget to add on the cost of the first round.’

At this Garth moved the calculator aside, though not far. ‘I regard that as distinctly uncalled for, Alun,’ he said in a sorrowful tone. ‘If not downright gratuitous. Those first drinks were not a round in any sense of the word. They were my freely offered hospitality. Good God, man, do you take me for some kind of Scrooge?’

Instantly Alun choked on his first sip of whisky and water. Coughing with marked violence he shakily clunked his glass back on the sideboard, strolled a pace or two and down sprawling with most of his top half across one of the sofas and his legs spread out on the thin carpet. This seemed even for him an unusually thorough imitation of a man collapsing with rage or revulsion. So at least Charlie considered. Since he was the nearest he stooped down over the sofa. Peter followed him.

Alun was breathing loudly and deeply through his mouth in the guttural equivalent of a snore. His eyes were wide open and to all appearances focusing, though not on Charlie or Peter, nor on Garth when he too bent over him. In a low voice but quite distinctly he said a couple of meaningless words and his mouth moved. Then his eyelids drooped and he stopped doing anything at all.

‘I think that’s it,’ said Garth.

‘What?’ Charlie felt utterly bewildered.

‘I think he’s dead,’ said Garth, continuing none the less to loosen Alun’s tie and unbutton the neck of his shirt. ‘Yes, I’m afraid he’s gone.’