"I told you we were near Nottingham." Mo sniffed. "There's nothing like that smell anywhere else in the world. God it makes you hungry!"

"Takes you back a bit, eh?" said Major Nye. "Now this, of course, is where an off-road vehicle proves herself." The delicate veins on his hands quivered and tensed as he found his gears.

"Isn't it still relatively unspoiled?" Trixibell tried to take the bib from her mother who clung to it, glaring and mumbling. Lady Brunner's lunchtime pap was caked all over her face and chest. "The heartland of England. Where our most potent legends were nurtured."

"That's crap, dear," said Una. "The only thing nurtured around here is two thousand years of ignorance and prejudice."

"So she's right," Colonel Hira rubbed softly at his buttocks. "The heartland of England."

"Fucking tories," said Mo.

"Right on!" Colonel Hira's chubby fist jabbed the overhead air.

"Haven't you forgotten how fucking concerned, caring and multi-cultural the conservatives really were, colonel?" The Hon. Trixibell was furious."One more crack like that and you'll be whistling 'Mammy'."

"I thought you were with the other lot." Major Nye was puzzled.

Trixi made an edgy gesture. She hated argument. It was so hard to tell who really had the power these days.

"That doesn't mean I can't see all sides."

Laughing, Jerry coughed something up.

As best they could, the others shifted away from him.

It was getting crowded in the steel-plated cab. The heat was unseasonal.

What was going wrong with the weather?

"Greenhouse!" Jerry was reading his phlegm. "We have to get back to Kew. Kew."

"Kew?" Mo cheered up. He had always tried to avoid the Midlands.

"Queue?" Trixi shook a vehement head. "Queue ? Never again."

"Kew," said Jerry. "Kew. Kew."

"You should get that looked at." From the shadows under the instrument panel Bishop Beesley surfaced. "You could infect us all."

Everyone was staring at him. They had believed him gone off with the renegades.

He adjusted his mitre. He shrugged his cassock straight and took a firm grip on his crook. "There were small, unsettled differences," he explained. "In the end I could not in conscience take another appointment. My place is with you."

"But you've wolfed the supplies," said Mo.

"There was hardly anything left." The bishop was all reassurance. "Hardly a bite. Not a sniff. I wish I could tell you otherwise. A little jam would have been welcome, but no. These are harsh conditions and the Church must find the resources to meet them. I suggest that we pick up our holy charge and proceed directly to Coventry where negotiations are already in progress. They're well-known to have enormous stockpiles." His mouth foamed with anticipatory juices. "Rowntrees. Cadbury's. Terry's. Everything. Warehouses worthy of Joseph!"

"Coventry's the soft option." Mo found the butt of his Monteverdi. Contemptuously he stuck it into his mouth. "You want chocs, bishop, we should go to York. It's the obvious place. They always make the highest bids on this stuff."

"Stuff?" Bishop Beesley was outraged. "Is that any way to speak of such holy remains? The Church's motives, Mr Collier, if not yours, are of the highest. Coventry is much closer. Moreover the bishop there is well-disposed towards us. Did you hear what the Bishop of York had to say? Idolatory! he says! Step into the 21st century, divine colleague, I say. But when all the dust settles, security is our chief concern. As I am sure it's yours. We should never forget that ours is above all a profoundly spiritual quest."

"Oh, for God's sake! Oh, Christ!"

Accidentally, Trixi had put her hand into Jerry's jerking crotch.

Jerry's lips gave an odd spasm. "Come again?"