Wednesday afternoon was crisp and clear, the watery winter sunshine showing the M4 motorway in all its tawdry gray glory, a succession of roadworks, graffiti-covered overpasses, and potholes. Driving through the latest in a succession of ugly outlying suburban sprawlzones, Geraint cursed imaginatively but anatomically impossibly. What set him off was another snarl of traffic fifteen miles beyond the outer orbital, a tailback from one of the ubiquitous road repairs that had the highway down to one lane of traffic in either direction. Francesca sat beside him with fingers flying, dumping notes into her laptop.