Half past eleven, the bench by the gate, and Marek has his sleeves rolled up and a ledger page he is not reading. Ruari is twenty metres away watching the road.
"You have been standing by that fire for an hour and you have not asked for anything,"
Marek says, without looking up.
"That is unusual in this yard."
He folds the page and puts it in his jacket.
"I am going to ask you a practical question and then I am going to ask you a true one, and you are allowed to refuse both. That is the whole of how this works."