The harassed looking older man sat down heavily on the bench in the village square and sighed as he opened his briefcase . Taking out a bundle of papers , and a folder full of forms , he carefully set them on the bench beside him , and laid the briefcase on them , in case an errant breeze should blow them away.

They were in enough confusion already , and he certainly did not want that confusion to be worse confounded . He knew that , on an earlier sweep through the town , he had collected most of the names and occupations , but there must have been a few who had escaped him , and so now he had to correlate his material .

It was too pleasant a day for him to go back to the pub where he had been staying for the last two days , and he thought that the job could easily enough be done outdoors . He decided that it would be best to ignore the blatant stares of the strange looking boy idling just away across the square , but made a mental note that he had best check up on his background and his family.

He smiled to himself as he thought of the conversations he had overheard in the bar while he was having an evening drink. There had been mention of the boy and the owner of the shoe shop . There was no doubt in his mind that the interrelationships in such a small place were both amusing and complex.

Looking right and left along the main street , he mentally ticked the various places and people he knew of . Even after only one day at the pub , he had begun to think of a lot of them by first name only.

Fred West , the pub landlord who had been in trouble over an assault on

Mary Walker , the schoolteacher;

Crazy Tom a hanger on, with another barfly mate ,

Mad Tom ;

Jim Child who spent a lot of time a the bar as did

Father Gerard , who spent more time drinking at the pub than attending to parish duties ;

Tanya the barmaid , twin sister of

Brook , and sister of

Harry , who , he overheard ,was apparently having an affair with

Mrs Loveday while her husband ,

Terry works at the sweets factory.

Across the road he could see the Post Office and behind the counter was

Doris , who worked there for

Chris Mann , who was rumoured to be the great desire of Brook's life.

Further along the street were the shoe shop run by

Sam ,

and The Grocery Store owned by

Mr Alvedo , whose daughter

Jasmine worked in the local bank together with

James , the teller in charge of the branch.

Nearby was the butcher shop , where

Alan Short cohabited , between quarrels , with

Samantha George , daughter of

Ernie George , the poet milkman , whose wife

Mrs George did most of the running of the Wishing Well Cafe , helped by ;

Jenny , her daughter , the younger sister of Samantha.

The other cafe , not too far away , was run by

Rose Jones , with the help ,now and then , of her daughters;

Natasha ,

Louise and

Debbie , all of them married with families , and sisters to

Robert , the village constable , working with

Sergeant Bagheera .

At the far end of the street stood the Local Library , somewhat overstaffed by;

Ethan Hooper , who lived with his mother behind the church ,

Sarah Child , mother of three children;

Esther , Jane and William,

Lydia Woods granddaughter of ex-Mayor Noah and daughter of

Cassandra , wife to a troubled veteran and also mother of

Thomas , seven years old and her favourite .

Not too far from each other on the street stood the Florist Shop run by Mrs Day ,

and the Crafts Shop whose pottery making proprietor went by the name of Jane.

The Manor , a large Georgian house had recently been taken up after the previous Lady Nascent's death by the younger

Lady Helen Nascent , who employed

Peter Jack , an Australian backpacker living in the village for a while .

Shuffling his papers together , the collator finally made a note to check on the latest arrivals at Rose Cottage ;

Hans Anderson , with his wife

Ingrid , and their three children;

Kirsten , Markus and Ida

Folding his papers and fastening them with a couple of bulldog clips , the census taker packed them neatly in his briefcase and headed off to lunch at The Jumping Bean .

After a terrified glance at him , as if fearing some kind of violence , the strange young boy took flight as he got nearer.