The clink of cutlery and the rhythmic staccato of ‘Cool For Cats’ drift up from the kitchen, rousing me from a long, satisfying sleep. In Rosie Cooper’s 1930s three-bedroom semi-detached house on the side of Portsdown Hill the day is up and running.

I push myself to a sitting position, rake back my fringe and watch my tits barge free from my pyjama top in their usual indecorous fashion. I put it on back-to-front before I pad along the landing to the bathroom; I was too tired last night to notice what kind of impression I made on my host, but I don’t think it’ll be improved if she walks upstairs and sees my bare breasts bouncing around simply because I’m too lazy to sew a couple of buttons back on.

After I’ve relieved myself, showered, brushed my teeth and combed my tangled locks into some sort of order I pick out clean underwear from my holdall and proceed to the dressing table for my daily quota of powder and paint. I’m careful not to overdo things — just some foundation, eyeliner and pale pink lipstick to prove I’ve made an effort. Then I pull on my jeans and a plain white T-shirt, slip into my ankle boots, stuff my cigarettes and matches inside my shoulder bag and treat myself to a fairly critical appraisal in the mirror.

Not bad, babe — but you might want to think about doing something with that hair now that the warmer weather’s on its way.

Rosie is grilling slices of streaky bacon and beating eggs when I walk in on her. She’s a slim, good-looking woman in her middle forties, wearing a white short-sleeved cardigan over a pink gingham dress. Her dark hair is flecked with blonde highlights, parted on the left and cropped neatly above her ears, the kind of style you’d expect the assistant manager of a temping agency to have adopted. She greets me with a warm if practised smile.

“No need to ask if you had a good night’s rest,” she says, her voice enriched by a distinct south Hampshire burr. “I hope you’re not one of these people who doesn’t eat breakfast. My mother always says, and I agree with her, that if you take care of the inner girl first thing in the morning she’ll look after the outer girl for the rest of the day. She’s what in times gone by would have been called a ‘wise woman’. We don’t respect the older generation enough in my opinion. They have so much to teach us. But you’re too young to know what I’m talking about. So, there’s fruit juice over on the table. Help yourself to cereal and coffee. Kerrie should be joining us in a few minutes. She usually pops in on Saturdays around half-past nine, a quarter to ten-ish.”

I’d have been happy with ‘good morning’. It would’ve done.

“I’m just going outside for a smoke,” I tell her, trying hard not to lick my lips at the delectable smells coming from the cooker.

“Well, you know my thoughts on that, dear.”

After the lecture I received when I asked if there was an ashtray in my room? I think I do.

I open the back door and find myself on a tidy but underused patio. The lawn and its borders, sloping steeply upwards to end in front of a low wooden fence beyond which stretch the wide chalky acres of the hill, are similarly bereft of imagination. It’s a divorcee’s garden, well kept yet pining for the loving touch of the man who abandoned it.

A few slabs of crazy paving take me through to number 113. The houses in this part of Woodford Road are all built with their main doors at the side; they give onto stairwells that separate the living rooms from kitchens large enough to double as dining areas. Rosie’s red Ford Escort is perched rather precariously at the top of her portion of the shared drive; beside it sits the white van belonging to Kerrie’s boyfriend.

I stroll round to the back, where she’s putting washing out to dry — this having taken precedence over her need to dress in anything more becoming than a robe and a pair of fluffy slippers.

“You’re up early,” she remarks, her mouth pinched and drawn without her top teeth, the creases around it made more prominent by the strong sunshine.

“Rosie’s making breakfast. I thought I’d have a fag first. Want one?”

“Light it for me, would you thweetheart?” she says, placing two pegs between her lips.

“How are you feeling after yesterday’s exertions?” I ask once I’ve passed her the cigarette.

“A lot better for waking up with a gorgeouth man bethide me. Don’t you mith that?”

“Now and again,” I murmur, pushing away the picture it’s created of the couple making love. In fact I quite like the guy; in the hour and a half between him picking us up from the railway station and me being billeted on Rosie I found David Compton to be amiable, courteous and understanding as well as a knowledgeable, erudite communicator. Anyone less representative of your average self-employed painter and decorator would be hard to imagine.

“Jutht now and again?”

I look back down the hill towards Farlington marshes, which merge seamlessly into the brackish Langstone Harbour. To the west, a line of trees marks the shore of Hayling Island; in the other direction, five or six miles distant, the centre of Portsmouth is a hazy blur.

“It’s lovely here…”

“Thorry. Thore point, I know.”

I turn and force myself to smile.

“Don’t apologise. It’s just that I had to talk to Rosie about him last night. She kept me up till nearly midnight.”

“Ooh, you poor thing!”

She drapes an arm around my shoulder and escorts me into her kitchen. Dave is at the table in his work overalls, sipping coffee and reading the Guardian. He’s several years younger than Kerrie, and has both the appearance and attitude of someone who hasn’t quite given up on the hippy movement.

“Hello Ruth,” he says brightly, warmth pouring from his soft brown eyes.

“Hello there,” I reply with due diffidence.

I may have a libido that shows as much sign of life as a plague pit, but even to me it’s obvious what Kerrie sees in him. When I ignore the somewhat inconvenient fact that he’s a bloke with a dick and a pair of hairy bollocks, I have to admit I’m looking at a pretty exquisite specimen. It takes a concerted effort not to stare too admiringly at that broad, muscular chest, those powerful shoulders, that strong chin with its Kirk Douglas dimple, that silky torrent of dark brown hair…

After two or three minutes of inconsequential chit-chat he gets up to leave. Kerrie sees him to the door, sending him on his way with a clinch that would have animated a mummified Pharaoh. I can’t put my hand on my heart and say I’m not the tiniest bit curious as to what it would feel like to be in her place.

When she returns it’s to lead me straight back to her neighbour’s. Over breakfast the conversation bends towards Rosie’s daughter Nina, whose eldest child’s behaviour is causing his teachers some concern.

“I warned her about spoiling him,” she complains. “Didn’t I warn her, Kay?”

“You did, Ro,” agrees Kerrie as she spoons mushy cereal and warm milk into her mouth.

“I mean he’s come to that age, hasn’t he? She has to make rules and set boundaries, as you and I did for our own children. I’ve told her this till I’m blue in the face. And now she accuses me of interfering. I said I’m only passing on the benefit of my experience. But will she listen?”

“They won’t. Siobhan’th the thame.”

“You understand, of course you do. You’re a grandmother yourself.”

Kerrie nods sagely as she sets aside her bowl. She licks her gum clean, then gets to grips with a plate of scrambled egg while she outlines her plans for the next few days: in addition to tomorrow’s visit to the Isle of Wight, where Cathryn lives with her invalid mother, they include the rearranged meeting with her sisters in Reading before she makes the journey north to collect her car. Rosie’s attitude to the ‘vandalism’ visited on the Beetle outside the Gladstone is as inflexible as it was last night.

“Flogging’s too good for them, that’s what I say. Maggie’ll sort it out, she’s exactly the kind of strong personality this country’s been looking for. I hope you intend to charge the hotel, after all it happened on their property so they’re liable for any damage. I’ll check with Gerald when I see him this evening, but I’m sure I’m right. No reflection on you, dear,” she adds, patting my hand.

“Who’s Gerald?” I whisper to Kerrie when Rosie gets up to make a start on the dishes.

“I’ll tell you later,” she replies with a conspiratorial grin.

The Latimer household has come to life by the time we break free from Rosie’s clutches. Kerrie’s twin sons are in the living room watching Saturday morning television; she introduces me to them — they were out with friends when Dave brought us back last night — and leaves us to get acquainted while she ousts her daughters from the bathroom. Padraig, who has slightly darker hair and is plainly the more loquacious of the pair, explains that they’re both in their first year studying Mechanical Engineering at UMIST. Neither he nor his brother seem particularly upset that their mother has arrived home with a busty redhead in tow, which makes it a matter of some urgency to douse their enthusiasm by explaining that I’m married, and down here to explore the possibility of a reconciliation with my estranged husband — a story Kerrie and I hammered out for their benefit during the tedious couple of hours we spent on the slow train from Waterloo.

The girls know this already, and waste little time in coaxing me away from their half-brothers so they can resume the previous evening’s interrogation. Niamh, at fourteen the younger by just under a year, is blessed with pixie charm and a glossy cascade of copper-coloured hair she continually sweeps back from her face. Sinead is thoughtful and a little more reserved, her flawless heart-shaped features all but hidden by thick strawberry blonde tendrils. The questions rain down on me: did I watch Grease, is that Charley I’m wearing, do I prefer disco, rockabilly or powerpop, will I go glam this summer? (To which the answers are no, yes, none of them and possibly.)

Just before half-past ten Rosie sweeps into the room.

“You’re wanted upstairs,” she informs me, rolling her eyes at the stereophonic groan the summons elicits. “Right, you two. You’ve got ten minutes, then I’m off. With or without you. So unless you fancy catching the bus all the way into Pompey I’d suggest you get a move on.”

I follow Sinead and Niamh as far as the landing, where I’m pointed towards Kerrie’s bedroom. The door is ajar; I knock and wait to be invited inside.

She’s at the dressing table, naked apart from her bra, panties and tights. I take the chair she indicates, crossing one thigh over the other as I watch her fish her denture from the tumbler where it spent the night. She shakes off the excess water, uses a spatula to smear adhesive across the back of the plate and slides it into her mouth, making a few final adjustments with her fingers and tongue.

“Mmm...well, that’sh about ash comfy as it’s ever going to be,” she says. “Now I’m used to wearing false teeth I should really get round to having the rest of them whipped out. Both my sisters lost theirs before they were forty, and they say it hasn’t affected their sex lives one little bit. Then again, being all gummy when you’re making love certainly has its selling points.”

It’s a second or two before I figure out what she means. Then I feel my jaws fall open.

“You don’t...”

“You must’ve led a very sheltered life if that shocks you, sweetheart.” She walks over to the wardrobe and picks out a pale green short-sleeved top and a full-length wrap-around patterned skirt. “A bit suburban housewifey, but it’s only to get the groceries in.”

“You were going to tell me about Gerald,” I remind her.

“Oh yes! He’s Rosie’s ex-husband. They still see each other, although it’s me he’s interested in, not her. I think she knows that, she just won’t admit it to herself.”

“What’s he like?”

“Just what you might expect from a former army officer. Well groomed, articulate, respectful of tradition, morally upright. Distinguished rather than what you’d normally consider handsome. He runs a picture-framing business in Hamble. Built it up from practically nothing.”

How did I guess that he would sound just like Richard’s stepdad? Perhaps you aren’t born with that name, you have to earn it by proving yourself to be a proper stick-in-the-mud.

“He’s aware that you’re spoken for?”

She combs out her rainbow hair and steps into a pair of slip-on shoes.

“David’s thirty-one. I shall be thirty-nine before the end of the year. He won’t be with me for ever. That’s Gerry’s way of thinking.”

“What’s yours?”

“For all that he represents everything I’ve always hated, Gerald Cooper is one of the kindest, most dependable men you could meet. Rosie was the one who strayed, not him. That’s something a woman my age has to bear in mind.” She returns to the mirror and dabs at one of the embryonic wrinkles above her upper lip. “Takes longer every day, keeping the ravages of time at arm’s length. Don’t laugh, sweetheart. You’ve got all this to come.”

I glance at the bag resting on the edge of her bed, wondering if Helen Sutton’s notebook is still inside or it’s been locked away somewhere. I decide not to bring the subject up; my encounter with Egerton has given me enough to worry about.

That goes for the photographs as well. You might consider getting them back for us.

And put on the line all the trust Kerrie has shown in me?

No thanks.

But that isn’t what keeps circling the fringes of my consciousness like a ravenous vulture.

“Come on, shake a leg!” Kerrie is saying to me from the doorway. “I’m having Siobhan and Terry over for tea, and until we’ve been shopping all I can offer them is a choice between crispy pancakes and fish fingers.”

She was taken in by the MoD. What they did with her I dread to think.

What of the woman whose body Yvette de Monnier appropriated before she stole mine? Did there come a time when she resigned herself to the loss of her youth, much as I accepted becoming female? Or does she continue to hope that the technology the MoD must still be working on may yet present her with the opportunity to snatch back the years de Monnier took from her?

That against all the odds she might one day resume her life as Ruth Hansford-Jones?

Yvette would like you on her side.

Sorry darling, I’m not in the mood to nail my colours to anyone’s mast but my own.

That doesn’t mean I won’t have a change of heart.

Because I’m not swapping bodies again. She can wait till kingdom come.

*

Dave Compton sits up in his chair, a forkful of chicken curry paused in front of his mouth. He sends an expression of friendly dismay at the sandy-haired young man on the other side of the table.

“Is that what you really think?” he laughs. “Funny, I didn’t have you down as a Tory.”

“I’m not. At least I wasn’t.” Terry Haynes leans back in his chair and pats his stomach. Siobhan’s boyfriend is a beefy figure with a build that suggests he knows his way around a rugby pitch and is equally familiar with the layout of the clubhouse bar. “But you’ve got to agree, Labour isn’t working.”

“Yeah, we’ve all seen the posters,” Eamonn chips in.

“That queue of unemployed stretching from London to Inverness,” grunts Padraig. “If you got them to bunch up a bit it’d probably only reach Berwick.”

“Only?” cries Terry, prompting a loud “sssh!” from Siobhan as she tries to rock her little boy to sleep.

“Where’s Berwick?” Niamh hisses at me.

“Somewhere in Scotland,” answers Sinead.

“It’s on the border, but it’s actually in England,” I correct her.

“That’s the trouble with propaganda,” Padraig continues. “It sounds bad, but you’re given nothing to compare it with. What about the line of people in employment? On the same scale it’d go three-quarters of the way round the globe.”

“Did you sit and work that out?” asks Dave.

“No, it was a mate of ours up in Manchester,” says Eamonn.

“Bob Nobbs,” nods his brother.

Sinead and Niamh start giggling, and I can’t help joining in.

“Is that his real name?” wonders Kerrie, nibbling at a spicy pastry I’ve learned is called a samosa.

“No, it’s Brian. He never goes to the pub, so everyone calls him Boring Old Brian. The initials B, O, B spell–“

“I get it, sweetheart.”

Kerrie takes Liam from Siobhan, who’s a walking contradiction of spiky peroxide blonde hair, Monroe lips, grungy leather jacket and virgin white frock. Every inch her mother’s daughter, in other words.

“That’s right, my darling,” she whispers into his ear. “You stay with grandma while mummy goes for a cigarette.”

“I thought you’d given up?” says Kerrie.

“She did,” sighs Terry. “Then we had my mum and dad over for a few days.”

“Enough said,” grins Dave.

The meal comes to an end with Kerrie announcing that the boys are in charge of the washing up. There isn’t a murmur of dissent. We girls retire to the front room with the baby, and if I can’t bring myself to bill and coo over him like the others, the smile that brightens my face when it’s my turn to hold him and he grabs at my boob is entirely unrehearsed.

Strangely, my recently awakened maternal instincts go straight back to sleep when Siobhan begins changing her son’s nappy.

After a quarter of an hour or so, Kerrie embarks on an inspection of the kitchen. As satisfied as it’s possible for a woman to be when other people have been working in her domain, she ushers me outside for a smoke.

“It’s all a bit different from yesterday,” she remarks as we light up.

“You can say that again,” I concur, brushing a particularly obstinate flake of pastry from the front of my jeans. “I don’t know if I’m all that keen on being chased around London by thieves.”

I make no further reference to the circumstances that brought me here. There’ll be plenty of time for that when we meet Kerrie’s friend tomorrow. Until then I’m happy to wallow in cosy domesticity.

“David and I will be going out for a drink later on. Just as far as the Sundial — the pub I pointed out when we were at the shops, remember? It’s nice in there, and they have live music most Saturdays. Eamonn and Padraig are heading down at about eight. They say you’re more than welcome to join them.”

“Sinead and Niamh have plans as well, am I right? It’s okay, message received and understood.”

“You can’t blame me for wanting to spend some time alone with him.”

“God no!” I laugh. “You fell on your feet with that one! He’s just the sort of guy I’d…”

I’d what exactly?

It’s all very well to admire a man’s physique or daydream about sliding my fingers across his firm, taut skin, but there’s a person inside — and that person will want to paw me, breathe erotic suggestions into my ear and climb all over me whenever the mood takes him. Although I might come to enjoy such attention, the suitor I can imagine wining and dining me, sending me chocolates and flowers, saying I look nice in my new dress, whirling me around the dance floor, or even pulling me down on top of him, unzipping and unhooking me before I know what’s going on, is a generic figure with no more personality than a mannequin in a shop window. Give him a face or a voice, and even if he’s as attractive as Dave Compton the fantasy evaporates at once.

“So there’s life after Tim?” smiles Kerrie, nudging me in the side.

“There will be. I’ll have to meet him first. But let’s not talk about my non-existent love life. Come on, tell me: how did you two get together?”

“Through Rosie. Indirectly, anyway. When Gerry moved out she decided to have the house re-decorated from top to bottom. Well, as you know we’re in and out of one another’s kitchens all the time...”

“Hmm...then he was the hunky workman and you were the sexy neighbour who popped in to offer him a mug of tea? And maybe more besides?”

“It wasn’t like that at all,” she protests. “What d’you take me for? It was coffee.”

She goes on to tell me that the relationship only really got going in the run-up to Christmas, when Dave’s landlady decided to sell the house he’d been renting from her to a property company rather than fork out the  £1300 it would have taken to pay for the repairs a local government inspector had instructed her to carry out. Although the new owners were obliged by law to find him temporary accommodation, when Kerrie saw the conditions her new boyfriend would have to put up with she immediately invited him to move in with her.

“It won’t last for ever, I know that,” she admits. “He dotes on my children nearly as much as I do, but one day he’ll want his own. And I’m not the woman to give him them.”

I have the best part of an hour before I need to get ready, so I pass it in front of the television exchanging frivolous observations on a variety of topics with whoever happens to be in the room. The utter mundanity of the occasion helps me sink all the more deeply into my new persona. I dole out snippets of my invented past, each sounding less fraudulent than the one before.

If you tell a lie often enough...

But sometimes the truth can be an encumbrance.

What good has it done me to learn what really happened that night in Northcroft? How can it possibly have an impact on my future? What do I have to gain by listening to any more talk of conspiracies and cover-ups? Wouldn’t it be better to make myself believe — really believe — that the authorities acted properly, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional?

The coroner’s verdict at the inquest into Bob Hodgson’s death was indeed the correct one. Helen Sutton died of natural causes. Richard Brookbank was killed in a car accident. Bob’s was the only body washed up on Carr House Sands.

And Ruth Hansford-Jones has no interest whatsoever in any of those events.

That’s the way it has to be.

That’s the way it is.

*

Closing the bedroom door behind me, I proceed to the dressing table to remove my make-up and review a surprisingly enjoyable end to an extremely relaxing day.

To most people, the three hours I spent in the Sundial with Padraig, Eamonn and their friends — Kerrie and Dave didn’t show up until half-past ten — would have seemed wholly unremarkable. To me, experiencing a night out from a female point of view for the first time since Christmas, every moment was heavy with significance.

It went all the more smoothly for me being aware of the ground rules as taught to me by this body’s former owner. I didn’t drink alcohol for the first three rounds, and limited my intake to two halves of lager and lime after that. I was careful not to say too much, and took great pains to avoid being seen paying undue attention to any one member of the group. When one of the girls — I think her name was Lorraine — whispered to me that she was off to visit the Ladies, I recognised it as an invitation to join her, one it would have been impolite to ignore. And I sized up the competition as if I really did see them as rivals.

The overtly sexual looks I drew from a large proportion of the male customers proved harder to deal with. I had to remind myself that when I’m in full make-up I attract stares, and lots of them. The tousled gingery blonde hair, the prominence of my bust, the swimmer’s shoulders, the way I fill out my jeans, none of those features will ever belong to a wallflower. The trick, of course, is to cultivate an air of feigned indifference. You’re telling these men that their interest in you has been noted, but that’s all.

The evening also provided ample confirmation — in truth, little was needed — that any attraction I once felt for the female form has disappeared. Whatever the future holds for me, it is not a romantic relationship with another woman. The idea of moving between Olivia Newton John’s outspread thighs is as unappealing as the thought of John Travolta thrusting away between mine. In fact if I was forced to choose one or the other I’d open my legs for John every time. Less work for me, and he’d be the one paying for the champagne.

I use a swab to clean my skin, making sure I rub it into all the little folds and indentations around my eyes and mouth. Although Sylvia has assured me I’ve the type of skin that won’t age prematurely, I’d rather instil my routine with good practice now than have to take it up when the first intimations of mortality appear in the looking glass.

I’m reaching back to unhook my bra when I hear a rustling noise outside. I turn off the light, then kneel on the bed to peer through the curtains. The room is at the rear of the house, giving me a clear view of Rosie’s garden once my vision has adjusted to the darkness.

There’s a shadow on Kerrie’s side of the fence, not far from the shed at the top of her lawn.

And that’s a torch!

Egerton.

He must have obtained Kerrie’s address from the hotel register.

But I thought he wanted me to do his dirty work for him? And shouldn’t he have more sense than to go creeping around in people’s gardens less than an hour after the pubs have shut?

I can’t disturb Rosie. She’d insist on being told everything. As for Kerrie, the way she was all over her boyfriend after two or three rum and Cokes I’d be astonished if she isn’t being humped within an inch of her life at this very moment.

I retrieve my T-shirt and jeans from my holdall and pull them on. Shoes in hand, I steal downstairs. I remember that the back door key is in the kitchen, on a ring suspended from a hook between the fridge and the washing machine. It’s stiff, but it turns in the lock with a barely audible click.

Now for the hard part.

I sit on the step to slide my feet into my shoes. Lifting myself up, I inch my way along the crazy paving towards Kerrie’s patio and crane my neck to see around the end of the fence. The prowler is now inside the shed, shining his torch every which way as he conducts his illicit search.

I make a dash for the corner to the right of the door, pressing my back against the wall as if I’m playing some nocturnal game of hide-and-seek. Very slowly, I slither around to a position where I can look through the grimy, cobweb-covered window.

The beam illuminates Helen Sutton’s notebook, which is open at the photograph of the mosque. A hand turns the page, and I can hear a muffled snigger as the portrait of a bizarrely transformed Sarah-Jane Collingwood is revealed.

To my amazement, the intruder doesn’t stuff the notebook into his jacket but places it behind the paint pot on the shelf where Kerrie had evidently concealed it.

And that’s not the only thing lifting my hand to my mouth before I dart back into the shadows.

Locking the door after him, Dave Compton switches off his torch and marches purposefully across the grass to the house.

Now what am I supposed to make of that?

More to the point, what can I do about it?

If I don’t do this now I never will.

How long has it been? Seven years? Longer?

She’d be in junior school…

Stop it!

The ferry doesn’t go anywhere near the open sea. Here it comes now, breasting the placid surface with almost swanlike grace. The idea that it could ever get into difficulties is absurd. You take a risk hundreds of times greater every time you start your car.

All you have to do is find a seat on the covered deck well away from the side, concentrate on your book and the crossing will have ended before you’ve read a couple of pages. Think of the sense of achievement you’ll be revelling in when you arrive at the other side!

There’s no queue at the ticket office, but I never seem to reach it. Maybe it’s the memories that flood through me when I watch the ferry pitch in the water as it turns to come alongside the landing stage.

Thunder and lightning. Waves as high as office blocks. The piercing screams of terrified children. Tearful couples saying goodbye to one another. Grown men fighting over life jackets as the order to abandon ship is relayed over the crackling tannoy. A muscular arm pushing me aside, its owner unaware of the bulging maternity dress beneath my coat. A priest offering the last rites to those the rafts and dinghies cannot take. The horrific emptiness in the eyes of a young crewman who knows he will shortly die. The frantic gestures of the drowning as they go under for the final time. Adrift...

I turn back, wanting to be sick. Nothing short of being marched down the gangway at gunpoint will make me board that floating death trap.

The nausea slowly subsides. I need to go somewhere quiet, have a cigarette and put this latest failure behind me.

Bejewelled, black-nailed hands grasp me by the waist. The softest of ebony lips caress my cheek, move sensuously to my left ear. Whispered words in a strange tongue invade my consciousness, soothing and strengthening me.

"Siz okde."

It means…

It means I’m…

The dream dissolves, and with it the translation I was so close to making. My fingers push back my fringe, and I gaze at the familiar patterns of freckles covering my plump, bare arms with a mixture of vexation and relief.

Okde.

It means…

No, it’s gone.

But who was the wicked witch of the waterfront?

It was just a dream, babe. You’ve been letting your imagination run away with you, that’s all.

The clothes strewn on the carpet suggest why. I climb out of bed and put them back in my holdall, trying my hardest to think about how I should dress for the trip to the Isle of Wight rather than what Dave Compton was doing in the shed last night.

Hair up or down?

He wasn’t the least bit surprised by those photographs.

Will it be warm enough to go sleeveless?

And I know for a fact that Kerrie hasn’t said anything to him about the casket.

The light green jumper or the cream blouse?

So why was he sneaking out of the house at such a late hour?

It’s no good. Since neither of the compartments into which my mind has divided itself seem capable of solving the problems they’ve been set, I decide to mothball them until I’ve had my first cigarette of the day.

I trot down to Rosie’s garden in just a T-shirt and my pyjama bottoms, my bare feet making imprints in the dew-soaked lawn as I walk to and fro. The sun is out, and the early blossoms in the neighbouring properties help it to paint a springlike gloss over the quiet suburban scene. How pleasant it would be to live here, to bathe in the feelings of security and belonging that come from settling in a peaceful little spot like this!

I know I’ll never get a place of my own as long as I’m stuck at the Gladstone. Although I have more than enough put by for a deposit, I’d need a permanent job with a regular salary to qualify for a mortgage.

Unless I shack up with someone who already meets those needs — in which case it might mean sharing more than the repayments.

A hand touches my shoulder, making me jump.

“Sorry about that,” says Padraig.

“I should bloody well think so,” I pout. “You gave me the fright of my life.”

“Yeah, I’m uh…you wouldn’t happen to have a cig going spare, would you?”

“Only brought this one down. But you can finish it off if you like.”

“Thanks, you’re a treasure.”

I take one more drag, then pass him what’s left of the Marlboro. He ducks beneath the branches of Rosie’s apple tree and sits on the stile cut into the middle of her fence, his furtive glances reminding me of the times I would light up behind Neptune’s statue in a futile effort to prevent my mother from finding out that I smoked.

But that was a different person altogether. He wouldn’t have responded to Padraig’s grin by smiling back and walking over to stand right next to him.

“Coming with us today?” I ask as he stubs the cigarette out on the wooden rail and flings it behind him into the field.

“Hadn’t planned to.”

“Not really your scene, eh?”

He laughs and shakes his head.

“Cathryn’s — what’s the best way of putting it? — she isn’t that easy to get on with.”

“Oh…?”

“How much has mum told you about her?”

“Hardly anything. But the girls gave me a sort of potted biography. Have you read any of her books?”

“God, you mean that stuff she churns out as Katie Chang? I’ve waded through a couple of them. Lots of steamy lesbian sex scenes — if you’re into that sort of thing…”

“Which of course you’re not,” I chuckle.

He holds his hands up.

“Guilty as charged! But it did make me wonder about her.”

“I wouldn’t read too much into that — if you’ll pardon the pun. I don’t know too many crime writers who fantasise about poisoning their rivals or committing the perfect bank robbery.”

“Fair point. But seriously, don’t get into an argument with her about politics or religion or anything at all controversial. She likes to play around with people, twist their words. Sometimes she has me feeling like I’m walking on eggshells.”

I put on an exaggerated frown.

“One of those, eh? Well, thanks for the warning.”

“No problem. Actually, uh…I was thinking that if you, uh…if you wanted to give it a miss as well we could jump on the train and have a ride along to Brighton. Only takes about an hour.”

So that’s your game, is it? Paint an unflattering picture of Cathryn, then offer up a much more appealing alternative? Very clever.

“Just the two of us?”

“Sure, why not?”

To my surprise I’m tempted. I need to spend a lot more time with the opposite sex if I’m to learn how to manipulate them and ensure that if and when I enter a relationship with a man it’s conducted on my terms and according to my wishes. What better way to begin than on the arm of someone who’s lively, outgoing, intelligent and who knows he has to be on his very best behaviour or he’ll have his mother to contend with?

But this isn’t the time to embark on a dummy run for when I choose my first boyfriend.

“Sorry love, I’ve a feeling it won’t go down too well if I repay Kerrie’s hospitality by going gallivanting off with her son.”

He looks crestfallen, but not for long.

“Yeah, I don’t suppose it will. She’s in a rotten enough mood as it is.”

“Is she? Why’s that?”

“Dave says he’s got to go to work and Sinead’s arranged to meet her mates. Can’t say I blame either of them, to be honest.”

“How rotten is ‘rotten’?”

“Pretty rotten.”

A door flies open, the handle banging loudly against the wall. I turn to see Dave Compton, clad in a pair of stained white overalls, climb inside his van. The engine growls into action, slicing through the torpid Sunday morning air.

Kerrie emerges from the house. Hands on hips, she watches the vehicle roll down the drive and swing right into Woodford Road. Even from this distance I can tell how angry she is.

It looks like today’s voyage might not be such plain sailing after all.

At the corner of Queen Street and The Hard, the weather is warm and sunny. Otherwise, everything is more or less exactly as I left it five months ago.

I can’t say as much for myself. I can hardly believe that I’m the same girl who lurched and tottered away from the ramp outside Portsmouth Harbour station, alone and bewildered, that dark, rainy November afternoon.

How would she have reacted if she’d known what was ahead of her? What might she have done if someone had told her she’d always be female? That there would come a time when she’d learn to accept her new sex?

Thrown herself under the first bus that rolled by, I expect.

Things are very different now, as the last hour or two has shown.

Kerrie’s displeasure at her boyfriend having mellowed over soft-boiled eggs and soggy toast, she took one look at my outfit and marched me directly to her boudoir, where she cudgelled me out of my jumper and into a sleeveless white top cut so low it could impersonate a belt. To this she added a long string of imitation pearls and a cropped light blue corduroy jacket I’d have had trouble fastening even if all the buttons hadn’t been removed. She couldn’t have drawn more attention to my breasts if she’d painted arrows on my shoulders pointing to them.

Sinead may have cried off, but Niamh seemed only too delighted to grace us with her presence, settling into the back of Rosie’s car kitted out in a black-and-white hooped sweatshirt and black ski pants, and jumping out wearing the black silk scarf and beret she hadn’t had time to put on because she’d spent too long on her lashes. This caused Rosie to comment, as she dropped us off outside the dockyard’s main gate, that all the girl needed was a string of onions and a bicycle, and she could be whistling La Marseillaise on the set of Jules Et Jim. Needless to say, both references went completely over Niamh’s head.

All is sweetness and light now, on the surface at any rate. Kerrie, looking as racy as ever in her thin white jacket, strappy top and faded jeans, leads the way past the taxi rank, her eyes fixed on the station entrance. I risk a glance in the direction of the booth selling tickets for the Gosport ferry; if I can look down and not faint at the cleavage I’m displaying, a wooden hut with a felt roof shouldn’t cause me too much distress.

Because if you don’t, my darling, I’ll blow your fucking balls off.

What she forgot to say was that I’d lose them whether I co-operated with her or not.

But that’s all ancient history now. I survived — nothing else matters.

em>Their minds are all programmed to work in exactly the same way. A single appearance, a single set of opinions, a single purpose. They’re a totalitarian regime, a religious cult and a zombie plague all rolled into one.

Not even that.

Kerrie pays for our tickets at the serving hatch in the cramped booking hall, then conducts us along the platform where the electric train due to depart for Waterloo in a few minutes waits silently for its circuits to be engaged. At the top of the slope going down to the Sealink terminal she slips her arm through mine as Niamh skips on, energised by fleeting glimpses of gangways, mooring ropes and uniformed stewards.

We file aboard with the rest of the passengers, thrust without warning into a realm of bulkheads, portholes, lifebelts and other marine paraphernalia. As we reach the door to the main saloon Niamh says she wants to go onto the outer deck; with her mother’s permission I accompany her.

“I don’t know if we ought to stay out here too long,” I say to her as the breeze ruffles my hair, already threatening the dead-centre parting it took me so long to put in.

“Why not? Mum’ll be all right. She was last time.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t she tell you? She’s been scared of boats ever since she went over to Ireland on the Loch Garman and it sank.”

“She was on the Loch Garman? Really?”

Thunder and lightning. Waves as high as office blocks…

Must be another déjá  vu. Yeah, that’s it.

“She was only in the dinghy for an hour and a half, but she said it felt more like a month. It’s okay, she’s cured now.”

“Maybe that’s what she wants everyone to think,” I caution her, remembering how tightly Kerrie’s fingers gripped my forearm when we were walking up the gangway.

“I’d have known if she was fibbing. I always do.” She interrogates me with eyes that haven’t yet learned to disguise their intentions. “Can’t make you out, though. You’re not like most other women. I don’t mean anything bad by that.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“For a start, you don’t go on about men.”

“That’s right, I don’t.”

“Not even to complain about them.”

“What’s the point?”

Jesus, this is hard work.

Now she’s tugging at my elbow.

“Ooh, he’s nice! Over there, by the big mushroomy thing.” She flicks back the luxuriant copper-coloured hair tumbling across her shoulder. “Not bubble-head, the hunk behind him in the stripy shirt. He’s luscious, don’t you think so?”

The tall, strongly-built young man standing next to the capstan has already smiled in response to Niamh’s precocious body language.

“Not my type,” I maintain, but before I can embellish this statement I realise that I know who he is.

“Are you kidding? He’s…oh my gosh he’s coming over!”

“Niamh,” I say sharply. “Go inside and sit with your mum.”

“What? But why?”

“Just do as you’re told.”

She blanches at the harshness of my voice, but obeys without another word. I light a cigarette and wait.

Cunningham swaggers across the deck, his cold grey eyes divesting me of every article of clothing I wear. That’s happened to me before — I’m a barmaid, and I’ve grown used to it. What I’m not prepared for, perhaps because his appearance came as such a bolt from the blue, is the ease with which they lock onto mine and hold them fast. For the first time I begin to see that sexual desire isn’t always about satisfying bodily cravings; it can be motivated by one individual’s wish to exert control over another.

Or to submit…

But is his interest in me such a bad thing? Although it turns my stomach to think that he’s overcome the revulsion he felt when he drove me to Hayden Park to such an extent that he actually fancies me, I’m beginning to wonder if I haven’t found a weakness I can exploit to the full by using my sex in the way nature intended.

Careful, babe. This one’s a predator — mess it up and he’ll have you for breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper and any other meal you care to mention.

But I’ve got to start somewhere. And there’s no denying he needs taking down a peg or two.

“Pick me out in a crowd, could you?” I sneer.

“Someone has to watch your back.”

“It’s my front you seem more bothered about.”

He pushes out a humourless laugh. I want to slap him, but that would only give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d penetrated my defences.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him instead.

“This boat is carrying an extremely valuable cargo. It’s my job to see it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

“Like to enlarge on that?”

He looks round to check if anyone’s eavesdropping. Behind him, the Camber Dock and the Spice Island pub drift slowly past the port railing. I’m surprised to see them; I hadn’t realised the crossing was underway.

“We’re too close to a result to let loose cannons fuck things up now,” he says in a low voice.

“Meaning me?”

“If the cap fits…”

“You know I’d be a lot less of a liability if someone would have the decency to fill me in on what’s happening. That’s the trouble with your lot. You expect me to do all this work for you, but you insist on keeping me in the dark.”

“What work? Your part in this is to help out at the Gladstone, that’s all. We put you there because we thought you might renew your friendship with the Hodgson girl, maybe get in with her mum and her stepdad. You didn’t, so we left you alone. But now you’ve allowed yourself to be dragged into Kerrie Latimer’s affairs, you’ve made yourself a target for the other side.”

“You’re talking about Egerton and de Monnier.”

“It’s odds-on they’ll try to win you over.”

Egerton’s already made his pitch, but I’m not about to tell Cunningham that.

“So I’m important to you? That’s nice to know.”

The ferry is well clear of the harbour entrance by now, and as the wind increases in strength I abandon my efforts to keep the flaps of my jacket from being blown aside. Cunningham isn’t blind to this, and as I watch him struggle to control his natural male urges my confidence in my ability to outwit him grows.

“It’s done you good, becoming a girl,” he grins. “Given you a backbone.”

“Fuck off. You have no idea what I’ve been through.”

“You seem to have managed okay. Better than okay, from where I’m standing.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t have much choice, did I?”

“Don’t give me that. I bet you stand in front of the mirror all the time, ogling yourself and playing with your tits. You fucking love it.”

It’s an outrageous accusation, designed specifically to heighten the tension between us. And it has the desired effect, because now I want him to make a move on me just to bring the situation to a head.

“Maybe I do,” I say softly, and as our eyes meet once again mine respond to the challenge in that steely gaze with an invitation I know he won’t be able to resist.

When he steps forward. When he grabs hold of my waist and pulls me against him, so that my hands are resting flat on his chest. When his face comes so close I can see the stubble beginning to form on his chin. When I close my eyes and understand that in a moment or two I’ll know how it feels to be a woman being kissed a man. When that warm, moist softness brushes my lips and I part them in instinctive surrender. When his tongue has explored the inside of my mouth for so long that I can hardly breathe and I’m hanging on to his shoulders for dear life...

When he shoves me to one side and walks away without a word — then I appreciate how new to all this I really am.

I head for the saloon, silently pledging vengeance on a scale not seen since the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Kerrie and Niamh are in the central seating area; I join them, allowing the gentle swaying motion and relentless throb of the engines to gradually calm me. Through the front window I stare at the Martello towers built in the 1860s to safeguard the country against invasion, and the yachts careening around them like slow-motion butterflies.

“Who was that?” wonders Niamh.

“A friend of my husband’s.” I turn to Kerrie. “He has some rather unpleasant tastes. I thought it best if I sent her back to you.”

“Thanks, sweetheart,” she says, squeezing my hand. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

Fine and fucking dandy.

I let Cunningham kiss me.

Cunningham!

And I got exactly what I deserved for naively thinking I could twist him around my finger.

I’d like to wash the taste of him from my mouth, but I’m not sure there’ll be anywhere in Ryde that sells industrial-strength floor cleaner on a Sunday.

Yet in a way the experience might have done me some good. I proved to myself that I know how to get the man I’ve set my sights on. It’s what happens afterwards that needs work; if I’d held out against Cunningham’s tongue just a little bit longer, he’d have savoured his victory all the more and we might still be snogging now.

But when I repeat the exercise it won’t be with him. I can do a lot better than that piece of shit.

And I’ll see to it that the next guy doesn’t walk away.

Ryde Pier extends nearly half a mile from the shore, a skeletal jumble of wood and steel that at its seaward end broadens into a landing stage big enough to hold a car park, a small railway station, a café and a terminal building topped with twin art deco domes. It’s the gateway to an island I’ve always regarded as quintessentially English, yet in many respects I feel as if I’m entering a different version of our green and pleasant land, an alternate dimension where modern life has seeped rather than flooded in from the wider world.

The train which will carry us to the Esplanade seems to have been put out to pasture here as a reward for its long service on the London Underground. Wearing a face he might have borrowed from an Ealing comedy, the guard watches the new arrivals crowd into the carriages with nary a thought of checking their tickets. This is how society should operate, on principles such as trust and integrity.

Fine sentiments from someone so adept at living a lie.

Kerrie, who has brightened considerably since the ferry docked, keeps her hand on the clasp of her bag as she settles into her seat. Helen Sutton’s notebook is within, concealed inside an envelope that until this morning held an unpaid gas bill. It’s an amateurish disguise, but it makes us both feel that little bit safer.

Thankfully there’s no sign of Cunningham. On the other hand, he probably isn’t working alone.

Waiting for the doors to slide shut, I review what I already know about the woman I’m shortly to meet. Cathryn Simmons was lecturing in Oriental and Middle Eastern Studies at Merton College, Oxford when she began what was to be a close and lasting friendship with the part-time library assistant who had recently moved to the city from south-west London with her husband and five children. Cathryn’s career, which had included research expeditions to such far-flung locations as the Nile valley, Nepal and northern Japan, was curtailed in 1973 after she resigned her post at the age of thirty-six to live with her ailing mother. Although Millicent Simmons has a substantial private income, Cathryn supports herself by running an antique shop in Ryde and writing historical fiction set in a variety of far-eastern locations under the pseudonym Katie Chang. Kerrie has promised me she’s a person I’m unlikely to forget in a hurry.

The train rattles and jolts along the pier. After a minute or so it glides smoothly to a halt beside a narrow, curving platform. As we reach the exit from the concourse and the numbers start to thin, I take my vanity case from my bag and peer in the mirror to check my hair and make-up. This also allows me to confirm that Cunningham isn’t in the group of people behind me.

God, that instant when I felt his tongue slither past my lips and I flung my arms around his neck…

It was an automatic reaction. Ruth’s subconscious memory systems taking charge, like they do when I’m brushing my teeth or signing my name.

True — but they’re still an integral part of the individual I think of as ‘me’. I can’t disown them just because I remember having a different set of responses. I’m the one who now prefers her coffee black. I’m the one who narrows her eyes in an exaggerated fashion to show I’m annoyed. I’m the one who forgets to turn off the light when I leave a room.

I’m the one who yielded to that kiss.

Who welcomed it.

You haven’t really got the hang of this yet, have you? For Cunningham, the kiss was an end in itself. You used it to try and cut him down to size. But that shouldn’t have stopped you from enjoying it as much as he did.

“There she is!” cries Niamh, dragging me into the open air.

The person waving at us from the pavement in front of the gift shop spares me only the briefest of looks, yet it very nearly sends me crashing to the ground. If Cunningham’s eyes stripped me of my clothes, Cathryn’s lay bare my soul. Suddenly I’m painfully conscious of who I am.

And who I’m not.

The sensation of being dissected one neuron at a time diminishes. I have been evaluated, and not found wanting.

But I can’t escape the feeling that the real test is still to come...

I shake myself free from the spell. It’s my guilty conscience that’s examining me, not her.

Cathryn Simmons is forty-two years old and might pass for thirty under tasteful lighting, thirty-five in the merciless glare of an arc lamp. Her olive skin is unblemished, the dark hair falling loosely down her back so silken it does everything but purr. As tall as Kerrie but slighter of build, she wears a tan jacket over a loose white blouse, cream slacks and light brown shoes with low heels. When she smiles, her delicate burgundy lips separate to show teeth so white and even her dentist might have honed his skills attending to royalty.

Impervious to the raised eyebrows she incites among the passers-by, Cathryn greets her friend with a tender embrace and a long, slow kiss. Niamh is welcomed with scarcely less affection. Kerrie introduces me; I feel my hand being taken and held for a second or two longer than would normally be appropriate between strangers. I pull it back as discreetly as I can.

“Very pretty,” she remarks. Her fingers have gone to my pearls, but I suspect she’s referring to something else entirely.

“I’m glad you think so,” I reply, imbuing the words with enough aloofness to make it clear to her that I can be a bit of a bitch towards those that rub me up the wrong way.

“We’ll chat later.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

Cathryn breaks eye contact first. One to me, I think.

Don’t let your guard down, babe. She wasn’t really trying.

Cathryn takes Kerrie’s arm and steers her in the direction of the silver BMW parked outside the hotel on the other side of the road. Niamh starts after them, beckoning me to follow.

“Come on, slowcoach!”

“Mind the traffic,” I call out.

Listen to me, clucking like a mother hen. Before I know it I’ll be baking cakes.

Somehow Niamh manages to grab the front seat. I climb in the back beside Kerrie, sinking deep into the soft leatherette. When I look out of the window I notice that Cunningham is standing outside the station entrance. If he walked from the ferry, he made very good time indeed.

As Cathryn guides the car away from the kerb I watch him turn and head in the opposite direction.

I don’t have to be a fortune-teller to predict that I haven’t seen the last of him.

St John’s House is a charming old villa at the top of the long, steep incline that ascends from the eastern end of Ryde Esplanade to the leafy residential area known as Appley Rise. Shielded from the road by a high stone wall draped with ivy and overhung with brawny oaks and lofty elms, the three-storey building is open on its northern side to a paved verandah overlooking a spacious lawn that dips towards the cloisters and secluded gardens of the restored St Cecilia’s Abbey, and thus presents the visitor with a spectacular view across the beach to Spithead and the mainland.

None of this can compete with the treasures the interior of the house holds. There is a room filled with silk scrolls, banners and glazed porcelain artefacts from a range of Chinese dynasties. There is a room devoted to figurines, steles, alabaster heads and daggers made of gold and lapis-lazuli from pre-Islamic Mesopotamia. There is a room decorated in the style of a Turkish coffee-house, another could be the setting for a Japanese tea ceremony, yet another is done out in the style of a Hindu temple.

Then there is the bathroom on the first floor, which might have been transported directly from first-century Rome. Looking at the elaborate mosaic floor tiles, the rich tapestries and the salacious frescoes featuring nubile young women entwined in a variety of compromising positions, I’m compelled to ask Cathryn how much this incredible collection cost to put together.

“A lot less than you’d think,” she replies. “Much of it was hidden away in dusty Oxford basements waiting to be catalogued, where it would have remained to this day if I hadn’t stepped in.”

“But some of these antiques must be worth thousands. How did you persuade the people in charge to let you take them?”

She raises a thin, deftly pencilled eyebrow.

“There are ways, darling.”

I incline my head a fraction to show her that no further explanation is necessary. She returns the gesture, acknowledging the fragile accord that appears to be forming between us.

The grand tour over, we return downstairs to the elegantly furnished but thematically neutral lounge. A dark-skinned girl with close-cropped hair, wearing a long red-and-yellow striped dress, takes my jacket and departs with a shy smile.

“Celeste’s such a treasure,” Cathryn enthuses. “We’ve almost come to think of her as one of the family. She’s got beautiful eyes, hasn’t she?”

“Mmm, they’re lovely.”

“They reveal so much about a person, don’t you agree?”

I stiffen at the subtle change in her tone.

“I don’t know whether they say everything…”

“That’s true. Yours aren’t giving me the whole story, not by any means.”

Let the tournament commence.

“I’ve found that’s the wisest course to take,” I say carefully.

“You’re right, sometimes it is. We all have secrets.”

“Yes, we do.”

She folds her arms in front of her.

“You’re a very attractive young woman, Ruth. Kerrie undersold you. But where matters of the heart are concerned her judgement’s faultless. She knows when people are lying to her about them.”

“Is this because I won’t talk about my husband?”

“A few days ago she told you that a boy you went to school with had died. The news upset you far more than it should have done.”

“Oh did it now?” I bristle, hands on hips.

“The people at the hotel said your family moved away from Northcroft when you were twelve. Now I can just about believe that you might have carried a torch for your childhood sweetheart for more than ten years, but not that when your marriage failed and you returned to your home town to put your life back together you’d make no attempt to look him up.”

“I fail to see what business this is of yours.”

“It becomes my business, darling, when someone I love very dearly feels she has to lie to her own children in order to protect them. It becomes my business when that person places her full trust in you, and you’re less than honest with her in return. It becomes my business when in spite of all that she persuades me to welcome you into my home.”

The arrival of Millicent Simmons, leaning on Kerrie’s arm, brings the confrontation to an end — though not, I feel certain, a conclusion. Cathryn’s mother is in her middle seventies, white-haired and disconcertingly frail. The reason for her fragile health is a blood disorder, which requires her to have regular transfusions and in the normal course of events would have seen her entering a nursing home long before now. There’s nothing the matter with her mind, however, as is proved when she makes the observation that I can’t be serious about patching up my marriage or I wouldn’t be wasting precious time here. Fortunately Niamh, clattering through the door in a state of breathless excitement because Celeste has offered to put her hair in dreadlocks, comes to my rescue.

Kerrie suggests that Niamh and I take Millicent out for her morning constitutional, and gives us strict instructions not to venture further than Puckpool Point, half a mile to the east. It’s not quite warm enough outside for bare arms, and rather than trouble Celeste for my jacket Cathryn loans me a cardigan I can wear around my shoulders with just the top button fastened. As the adult I put myself in charge of the wheelchair for the short journey along Appley Road and down Puckpool Hill to the sea front — if Niamh wants a go that badly she can push it all the way back up.

The old lady is fast asleep by the time we reach the entrance to the small park at the bottom of the bank. I place the chair beside an empty bench, light up and watch the hovercraft skim the shimmering water on its way across Spithead to Southsea beach. Northcroft couldn’t be further away if it was in a parallel universe.

“Cathy’s great, isn’t she?” says Niamh.

“She’s one of a kind, that’s for sure.”

“You haven’t got to know her well enough. When you do–“

“I think I know her as well as I’ll ever want to.”

“She says I’m gifted. Not as much as her, of course! No one is.”

“Gifted?”

“Yeah, but it’s not like being good at Maths. It’s more about working out what people are thinking deep down. That’s how I can tell mum isn’t frightened of boats any more. She was worried about something else, probably what she’s going to tell auntie Shannon and auntie Clare when she goes to see them. She’s gifted too, she just hasn’t learned to use it properly. Not sure about you, though. Strange one, you are.”

You don’t know the half of it, angel.

She rambles on for some time, but I’m not really listening. All I can hear is the word that was whispered in my ear at the end of my dream.

Okde.

Lunch is unexpectedly traditional: beef consommé, roast lamb, minted new potatoes, crunchy carrots, cauliflower, green beans, and for dessert raspberry tart and fresh cream. I contribute as little to the conversation as I can get away with; although I’m so used to passing Ruth’s story off as my own it’s quickly reaching the point where I sometimes have to stop and remind myself I didn’t actually experience those events, I fear that Cathryn will pounce on the smallest inconsistency and expose me for a fraud.

Ah well, next time a boy asks me to spend the day with him I’ll know not to turn the offer down in favour of his mum and her friend.

At the end of the meal Kerrie gets up to go to the bathroom, explaining that the second helping of tart she simply couldn’t resist has resulted in her getting pips stuck behind her denture. Cathryn and Celeste retire to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee, while Niamh rushes back to the latter’s room and the stack of reggae albums and singles she’s developed a sudden liking for. I stay seated, resisting the temptation to burp and reflecting that if I’m down south for very much longer I might have to go on a diet of lettuce leaves and crispbread when I get back to stop my waistline ballooning out of control.

At the head of the table, Millicent is in regretful mood.

“Kerrieanne makes me feel so old sometimes,” she sighs. “There she is, younger than my Cathryn by nearly four years and already she has a grandson. Help me up, dear, we’ll talk outside.”

I haul myself up and let her grasp my shoulder as I lift her to her feet. She weighs nothing at all, the poor love. I’d pick her up in my arms if I didn’t think it would be an affront to her dignity.

Although the sun is shining as we step through the French windows, the verandah faces north and will remain in shadow until late afternoon. Once I’ve lowered Millicent into her chair and wheeled it as far as the top of the ramp leading down to the grass, I reach forward to arrange her shawl and plump out the cushions behind her back. It gives me some amusement to picture Cunningham’s face if he could be here to see my breasts wobbling in their D cups as I go about my task. He might have spurned me after we kissed, but something tells me I’d have little trouble enticing him between the sheets.

Now if that doesn’t put me off my food…

“Have you ever considered a career as a home help?” asks Millicent. “You seem to have the same talent for it as Celeste.”

I sit on the balustrade, open my bag and take out a cigarette.

“To be honest, love, I don’t think I’ve got the patience.”

“I was a nurse, you know. During the war. That’s when I met Alfred.”

“Alfred?”

“My late husband.”

“Oh, I see. So you had Cathryn before you married him?”

Millicent closes her eyes, as if she finds the question unbearably intrusive. I light up and wait for her to continue.

“Singapore,” she smiles. “It was a lovely city.”

“You lived there?”

“He was on a destroyer. They brought him in with burns to the chest and left shoulder, and a fractured tibia. The very next day we were shipped out. We lost everything.”

“That must’ve been awful for you.”

She sighs, her expression becoming much more lucid as she tears herself back to the present.

“You know why Cathryn’s never had children, don’t you?”

“Not really...”

Though I can guess.

“She’s approaching a point in her life when she’ll wake up one day and realise it’s too late to change her mind. She hasn’t noticed middle age creeping up on her, a woman never does. How long have you been married?”

Here we go again.

Your name?

Ruth Hansford-Jones.

And your chosen specialist subject is...?

The girl I never was.

“Uh...just under a year.”

“When did you leave him?”

“November.”

“Then he was a mistake. End it and move on. Take a lover, if you haven’t already done so.”

When Celeste arrives to administer Millicent’s medication I snatch the opportunity to escape the old woman’s clutches with both hands.

Take a lover, if you haven’t already done so.

She makes it sound as straightforward as nipping into Fine Fare for a packet of biscuits.

The bathroom is empty — though Kerrie’s dental plate is still soaking in one of the glasses beside the largest of the three washbasins — so I rinse my hands in the bowl to the left of the one she’s using, and sit on the stool to fix my make-up. After a few minutes she walks through the door, touching me lightly on the shoulder as she passes. It’s her way of letting me know that the real business of the day can’t be postponed for very much longer.

But before we begin I need her to clear something up for me.

“Was Millicent’s first husband killed?”

Kerrie pauses in the act of inserting the denture between her lips.

“Her firtht huthband?”

“She said she met Alfred during the war. Cathryn would have been about two when it broke out.”

I finish touching up my mascara while she fits her smile back in place.

“What else did Millicent tell you?” she says eventually.

“Nothing much. She mentioned that they were evacuated from Singapore, and then changed the subject. The reason I’m asking is I don’t want to put my foot in it again, that’s all.”

Kerrie pulls her chair closer.

“Cathy was adopted in 1942. That’s all I know. Millicent’s kept it from her. I haven’t a clue why. So don’t say anything, okay?”

I’m about to ask her how she came by this information when Niamh dashes in, dreadlocks flailing.

“Can I stay and help out in the shop tomorrow? Can I, mum? Cathy said she’s got to go over to Portsmouth on Tuesday so I won’t be coming back on my own. Can I, mum? Can I?”

“What are you going to do for clothes?”

“Oh, I’ll borrow something off Celeste.”

“Something from Celeste.”

Niamh rolls her eyes at me.

“Mothers,” she mouths.

“Well all right, then,” says Kerrie, receiving a hug for her pains.

“Celeste’s ready to do your hair now,” Niamh tells her. “She says she’ll do yours as well if you want, Ruth.”

“She dyed it last time I was here,” explains Kerrie. “My natural colour’s the same as Sinead’s.”

“She did a good job of hiding all the grey, didn’t she mum?”

“Thank you, sweetheart. Why don’t you run along and tell Cathy you can stay before I change my mind?” As soon as the door has closed behind her daughter, she turns to the mirror. “I’ve decided to have a turn as a brunette.”

I stand to move behind her, brushing back the short, multicoloured strands hiding the top of her left ear.

“I’d ask her to take these bits off,” I suggest.

“And move the parting back to the side? I might just do that. You know, I used to have really short hair all the time when my children were younger. It’s so much easier to look after.”

Celeste arrives a moment or two later with Niamh in tow. Both are carrying trays filled with bottles, tubes, sachets and other tonsorial equipment. I decide to sit this one out — which makes it all the more difficult to understand why, when Kerrie and I finally show Cathryn the notebook and tell her the tale that goes with it, my tousled locks are as black as a starless night.

The sun has set behind the wooded hills between Ryde and the Medina estuary, its departure clearing the way for the lights shining from Gosport, Portsmouth, Southsea and Hayling Island to play their part in defying the encroaching darkness. Through the starboard windows of the saloon deck I follow them eastward until they shrink into insignificance; a few minutes into the crossing and my reflection, so different from the image I’ve become accustomed to, has masked all but the brightest.

I feel as if I’ve turned a very significant corner. The girl looking back at me is no longer the redhead who stole Richard Brookbank’s body. That link to my old life has been severed.

It’s some consolation for what has been a difficult and ultimately disappointing day.

“So that’s it, then.”

Kerrie’s remark is addressed to herself as much as me. Her quest is over, her role as amateur sleuth has ended in failure. The friend she counted on to help her make sense of this adventure has let her down, professing to be as mystified as us by the events we related in such painstaking detail, and seeming more interested in our thoughts regarding the latest torrid offering from the pen of ‘Katie Chang’.

“Looks like it,” I reply unconstructively, only slowly becoming aware that I’m fidgeting with my necklace and by doing so catching the unwelcome eye of a slovenly youth across the aisle.

“You’d think she’d have something to say about it all.”

“Unless she didn’t want to speak her mind in front of me.”

“That’s nonsense, sweetheart.”

“Come on, Kerrie, we hardly hit it off.”

“She’s like that with everyone at first. If you’d made a bad impression I’d know.”

I let the matter rest. Deception is tiring work, and I fear I’ll have a lot more of it to do before Kerrie and I part company for the final time.

The boat arrives in Portsmouth at twenty past nine. We get ready to disembark in lighter spirits, talking about the fashions we might try out this summer.

“You’ve a lot more choice as regards colour now you’ve got dark hair,” Kerrie remarks as we wait for the queue to start moving. “Blues and pinks especially.”

“Pink,” I grunt.

“Don’t say it like that!”

“I suppose I could carry it off…yeah, it would symbolise the new Ruth, footloose and fancy free.”

“You’ve been that for months, sweetheart. By now you should have chosen the man who’s going to be spreading your legs every night, and digging your claws into him to make sure he doesn’t get away.”

“That’s what Millicent said — though she didn’t put it in quite those terms.”

“I don’t imagine she did!”

She touches a hand to the near stubble above her left ear. It moves to the back of her neck, significantly more of which is visible thanks to Celeste’s scissors. For a moment I assume that’s the reason she’s begun to frown; then I see her point to the bottom of the gangway.

“That’s Gerald! What on earth’s he doing here?”

The gentleman in question is tall and rangy, with short, dark hair and a Clark Gable moustache. His immaculately pressed brown suit, together with his rigid military bearing, make it easy for me to identify him as Rosie’s former husband.

And going by what’s written on his face he hasn’t come to invite us for a drink.

The moment we step through the entrance to the terminal, Gerald Cooper takes Kerrie to one side and speaks urgently into her ear. I watch her eyes widen in shock as her hand moves to cover her mouth. Whatever tidings he’s brought, they are not good.

When she turns to me I hurry over, reaching out to grip her fingers tightly in mine.

“We’ve been broken into,” she gasps. “Eamonn’s in hospital.”

“He’s not badly hurt,” Gerald informs us. “David came back in time to help him and his brother chase them off. He’s waiting for you at the Queen Alexandra. Sinead and Padraig are with Rosemary. They’re both a bit shaken, but otherwise unharmed. The police were still there when I left, so the situation’s under control.”

“Was there much damage?” I ask him as we walk quickly up the ramp towards the main platform and the exit.

“You must be Ruth. Well, let’s just say it could have been a good deal worse. By the way, where’s Niamh?”

“She’s staying with Cathryn for a couple of days,” answers Kerrie.

“That’s probably for the best. I think we’re all in for a fairly late night.”

Gerald’s S-reg Citro?n is parked in almost exactly the same spot where Rosie pulled up this morning. While he’s unlocking the door I give Kerrie a look that spells out the name Egerton in letters so big they must be visible from space. She only needs to tip her head a fraction of an inch to confirm that she’s thinking the along the very same lines.

He’s just an underling, of course.

It’s de Monnier who’s after the notebook, and it seems she’s prepared to do whatever it takes to get her hands on it.

I only wish I knew why.

By midnight most of the clearing up has been done. Sinead went to bed half an hour ago, and Rosie returned next door shortly afterwards pleading an important meeting early tomorrow morning. I can’t say I’m sorry to see the back of her; the fact that the intrusion happened only a couple of days after Kerrie’s car was so badly damaged laid me open to the kind of interrogation not seen in this country since we stopped burning heretics.

Eamonn, who was released from the treatment room at a quarter to eleven boasting two stitches above his left eyebrow, is next to take his leave of us. Kerrie hugs her ‘wounded soldier’ while I send him a smile of genuine admiration. Going by Dave’s description of the men he found grappling with Kerrie’s sons I’m quite sure they were Lantern Jaw and Pug Face; any teenage boy who tackles that pair of heavies is a hero in my book.

When Gerald and Kerrie head into the living room to begin making an inventory of the items that will eventually appear on the insurance claim and Padraig comes out with a thinly disguised excuse to go for a cigarette I’m left alone with Dave. It’s an awkward situation — for me at any rate.

“Handy bloke to have around,” he remarks, tying up the last of the bin bags.

“Gerald? Yeah, I suppose he is.”

“Proposed to her the week before last.”

“He didn’t!” I exclaim. “What did she say to that?”

“She’s thinking about it. Don’t worry, Kay told me from the off that she was going to marry him. It’s a question of whether she accepts this time or the next.”

“You seem pretty calm about it.”

“Sometimes you just have to move on.”

He’s about to continue when Kerrie returns, dragging me into the living room for what she describes as an ‘urgent confab’. Gerald closes the door behind us and leans against it to stop anyone barging in.

“I’ve told him everything,” Kerrie confesses to me.

“What?” I cry. “You said–“

“Those men weren’t your common or garden burglars,” Gerald interjects. “They broke in before it was fully dark, so it’s reasonable to suppose that they didn’t care who saw them. That tells me they were looking for something valuable enough to offset the risk of being discovered.”

“They came into my home, when three of my children were here,” adds Kerrie. “I’m not about to turn down the offer of a helping hand, not when my family have been threatened.”

“This is the plan, Ruth. I take the notebook with me and deposit it in my bank’s night safe.”

Kerrie nods her agreement. I notice that her hand is resting in the crook of his elbow. She’s chosen the man who’s going to steer her through this crisis, and it isn’t the one she’s sleeping with.

But I’m still loath to mention what I saw last night. None of us need the confrontation that would inevitably follow — least of all the person who’d have to explain why she kept quiet about it for so long.

“Tomorrow I have to go to Reading, because I can’t postpone seeing my mum and my sisters any longer,” says Kerrie. “I’ll tell everyone you’ll be travelling with me as far as Fareham, which I believe is where you said your husband lives.”

Gerald moves closer to her. They’re a couple, whether they realise it yet or not.

“Kerrie’s going to order a taxi in the morning to take you both to Cosham station,” he informs me. “I’ll meet you there at half-past nine.”

“Once Gerry’s driven me to mum’s I want you to see what you can find out about Susan Dwyer — you remember, the girl from Glastonbury. You’ve done your bit as my trusty sidekick, sweetheart, now Gerry can be yours.”

I don’t have a chance to voice my opinion of this scheme — not that it would carry much weight — due to the sudden appearance of Padraig, who has decided to reward himself for his bravery and hard graft with a can of lager. Gerald stands aside to let him through, then decides it’s time he was on his way.

Kerrie sees him to his car. Meanwhile Dave comes in and puts on a Gallagher and Lyle album. Soon the gentle strains of ‘Never Give Up On Love’ are drifting from the stereo — an ironic choice, considering what he told me a few minutes ago.

Doomed though their relationship may be, it isn’t long before Kerrie and Dave are demonstrating that they can smooch with the best of them.

Padraig puts down his can.

“Are we going to join in or just stare at them?” he says, holding out his hand.

“Good idea, Pad,” murmurs Kerrie.

The snare has snapped shut before I realised it was there. I can’t refuse a nineteen year old boy a dance when his mother is in the same room.

Perhaps it’s fate getting me back for wanting Cunningham to kiss me.

Putting on my best smile, I extend my fingers so they’re just touching Padraig’s. They entwine automatically as my body’s reflexes take over; the contact feels anything but unpleasant, helping me to relax and allow my partner to draw me towards him. Our bodies move together, clumsily at first, then with a synchronicity that improves with each sway of our hips.

Kerrie drags herself free from her boyfriend’s embrace.

“Well done this evening,” she tells her son, kissing his cheek. “Don’t keep her up too late, will you?”

She follows Dave from the room. Padraig draws me closer.

“That was some night,” he says into my ear. “Love the hair, by the way.”

“Thanks. Glad you like it.”

The subtle pressure of his hand against the small of my back eases me even nearer. I’m not altogether comfortable about this, but I’m too tired to do anything but let instinct elbow its way into the driving seat. My head lolls against his chest, my fingers move to his shoulders, my thighs interlock with his.

Then…

Jesus, what’s that?

“Oops!” he splutters as I jump back from him.

I try to speak, but it’s a futile endeavour. I’ve just experienced the sensation of an erect penis pressing against my abdomen. I realise it was bound to happen at some point, but even so...

“Yes…er, well…” is about the best I can manage.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to, you know...”

He looks so dejected that it actually makes me ashamed to realise how shocked I felt.

“That’s all right,” I hear myself say. “To be honest with you I’d have been insulted if you hadn’t.”

We both start laughing.

“Ruth…” he begins, and this time the intuition that tells me to place a finger on his lips and say ‘goodnight’ is entirely my own.

Back in my room, I sit at the dressing table to admire Celeste’s handiwork and smile at the stir it’s bound to create among the regulars at the Gladstone when their gingery-blonde barmaid returns as a raven-haired temptress. I know I should be concentrating on more important matters, but they can wait.

Sufficient unto the day, and all that.

“We should do more to celebrate our patron saint’s day. There aren’t enough of us who take a pride in being English. Look at all this glorious countryside. Doesn’t it stir something in your soul, Ruth?”

Gerald Cooper, fifty-one years old, a former Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Engineers who three years ago resigned his commission to run his own business, guides the Citroen along the A4 with the air of a nobleman beginning a survey of his vast estates. Although he’s everything Kerrie said he’d be — genial, well-mannered, considerate and reliable — I find his overt patriotism and dearly held conservative values too reminiscent of the stepfather whose Christian name he shares to feel any real sense of comradeship towards him. Then there’s the fact that he’s taken complete charge of the day’s itinerary, relegating me once more to the role of a supporting player.

“I don’t know, I think we’re too diverse to call ourselves a nation,” I submit. “The area where I’m living now has nothing in common with the Home Counties. It’s different for the Scots and the Welsh. They’re more, what’s the word...homogenous?”

“So a shipyard worker from Clydebank can identify with a crofter in the Outer Hebrides? What about the Shetlanders? They don’t consider themselves Scottish at all.”

“Yeah, but we’re only talking about a few thousand people.”

Gerald has an answer for that, too. But then he would. He’s one of those men who simply must have the last word.

We pass the turn-off for Newbury, continuing west towards Hungerford and Marlborough. With another seventy miles to cover before we arrive in Glastonbury, I estimate that by then we’ll have been travelling for something like four and a half hours. It’s shaping up to be another exhausting day.

At least I’m mostly in my own clothes. The short-sleeved turquoise top with the black trim that complements my new hair colour so beautifully belongs to Kerrie — as does the small silver crucifix she fastened around my neck before we set off — but the leather jacket, jeans and ankle boots are mine. I’d rather look like a throwback to the Woodstock generation than have Gerald wondering if he’s been saddled with a bit of a tart.

The road becomes narrower after Hungerford, stretching through lush pastures bathed in spring sunshine and separated by ever more extensive tracts of woodland. This, my tour guide pronounces, is the heart of ancient Wessex, the one Saxon kingdom to hold out against the Vikings.

“Under Alfred the Great’s descendants it went on to form the nucleus of what would one day be called England,” he explains, as if it hasn’t crossed his mind that I might already know all this. “The north continued to be farmed by Danish settlers, which is why the accent in your part of the world is so different from ours. In Durham and Northumberland the Scandinavian tongue also took on elements from Scotland because that region was much closer to the border and subject to periodic invasions. Hence the Geordie way of speaking, which the rest of the country finds so impenetrable.”

Like so many other people with only a superficial knowledge of the north-east’s history, he’s mistaken on almost every count.

“You’ve never been to Carlisle, have you? It’s much closer to Scotland than Newcastle, eight and a half miles as opposed to nearly seventy,” I point out. “And their accent certainly doesn’t struggle to be understood. Geordie’s hard to get to grips with because that part of the north-east kept more of the original Anglian dialect than anywhere else. The Danes never settled in any numbers north of the Tees. You can tell by the place names. They wanted northern Northumbria — which, by the way, went as far as Stirling in those days — to be a buffer state under a client king. The border between England and Scotland wasn’t fixed at the Tweed until the eleventh century. In fact you could argue that Scots is an offshoot of Geordie, not the other way around.”

“I stand corrected,” smiles Gerald.

“Yeah, well I was born in County Durham. We only moved to Kent when I was twelve.”

“Kerrie told me. You’ve packed a lot into your young life. Will you stay in the north now that you’ve, uh…what’s the current idiom, returned to your roots?”

“I don’t think so. There aren’t too many job opportunities up there since the docks closed. Not that I see myself driving a fork-lift truck or working a crane!”

“No, somehow I can’t picture you in a boiler suit.”

Though just how I’ll escape from the Gladstone is a problem to which there appears to be no obvious solution.

At a village called Beckhampton we take the Devizes road, crossing the lonely Wiltshire Downs before descending to the greener, more thickly populated land to the south. As we come closer to our destination it doesn’t comfort me to remember that Egerton and de Monnier were there less than a week ago.

Left the metropolis for deepest Somerset, called HQ to report ‘mission accomplished’ and received orders to head north without further delay.

What mission? Who gave them their orders?

Which other shadowy organisation is involved in all this?

She has friends in the highest of high places.

And presumably the influence that goes with those connections. Influence over the local police force, perhaps.

Who is Yvette de Monnier? How deeply was she involved in the conspiracy to hide the truth about Sarah-Jane Collingwood’s disappearance? If she knew the girl had become a kuzkardesh gara, what was she doing asking questions in Bywell?

I’ve never told Peter, but some of the words…well, they spoke to me. I wanted to go out and repeat them to every woman I saw. I still do. And it’s not just me, either.

I give an involuntary shudder.

“Are you cold?” asks Gerald.

“No, it’s just...oh, I don’t know...”

“Everything’s going to be fine, Ruth. I promise.” He indicates right to overtake a farm vehicle. “Look, we’re only three or four miles from Trowbridge. We’ll stop there for a bite to eat. You’ll feel a lot better with something inside you.”

He’s right, I suppose. It’s never a good idea to go sleuthing on an empty stomach.

Or investigating a murder.

Glastonbury isn’t quite the tourist trap I expected. The shops huddled around the market cross at the bottom of the High Street have their share of windows filled with knick-knacks, herbal remedies, tie-dyed full-length skirts and occult literature, but the town seems half-hearted, if not embarrassed about cashing in on the celebrity it acquired during the short-lived hippy era. The only accommodation on offer is provided by a pub that looks to have been built as a coaching inn, whilst the limited number of spaces in the car park we use outside the entrance to the thirty-six acres of grounds surrounding the remains of the Benedictine Abbey, beneath which King Arthur is said to have been buried, is a barometer of how many visitors Britain’s ‘first Christian sanctuary’ attracts. Yet it’s a nice enough little place to spend an hour or two, with the gaps between the buildings opening up interesting views of the hills crowding in from the east and rising abruptly to the famous Tor.

It definitely doesn’t deserve to be sullied by the kind of tragedy Yvette de Monnier brought about in Northcroft.

The map we find in the abbey gift shop shows us that Chalice Lane runs along the far side of the park bordering the southern edge of the grounds. The weather has clouded over, but it’s warm enough for me to take off my jacket and carry it over my arm. I thought about putting my hair up until Gerald pooh-poohed the suggestion, saying it might make me look too much like a plain-clothes policewoman.

“We ought to come across as just an ordinary couple on a mission of mercy,” he told me.

“A couple?”

“It’s easier than inventing other reasons for us being together, particularly as you’re wearing a wedding ring. I hope that’s not a problem?”

No problem at all. How could it be?

As we begin the short walk along Magdalene Street I link arms with him. It’s not an empty gesture; I want him to know I’m taking this part seriously.

After a few yards he points towards the traffic lights ahead.

“If there’s a newsagent’s up there we’ll call in and pretend we’re lost. It’s a good way of testing the water. You can gather quite a lot of information from studying the reactions to a few well-chosen remarks.”

“Did they teach you that in the Army?”

“I’m an avid reader of detective stories.”

“Who’s your favourite?”

“That’s a tough one…but if you’re putting me on the spot I’ll have to say Sexton Blake.”

Gerald’s cheerful, confident smile allows me to forget the unsavoury nature of our business here and drift into a jazz-age fantasy where we’re investigating nothing more sinister than the theft of a diamond necklace. Give me that and I’d happily tag along as his sidekick — or anything else, for that matter.

“So if you were him, I’d be...?”

“Tinker.”

I think that’s what they call having your bubble pricked.

The only shop on the corner of Chalice Lane is a general dealer’s, fronted by trestle tables set out with trays of fruit, vegetables and flowers. At the sound of the bell the proprietress, a thickset woman in her forties, turns from filling the shelf to the right of the counter with tins of pork luncheon meat and corned beef, and flashes us both — but especially Gerald — a bright, gap-toothed smile.

“Hello!” she chirrups. “Nice weather for the time o’ year, ennit?”

“It certainly is,” replies Gerald. “Let’s hope it’s a sign that we’re in for a decent summer. The last two haven’t been much to write home about. Now, I was wondering if you could help us. We’re looking for Chalice Lane.”

From his inside pocket he produces a business card, which I assume is intended to satisfy her that we’re not debt collectors or Social Security snoopers.

“Oh, well this is the start of it, so you’re in the right–“ She breaks off, scowling at the unshaven, mop-haired individual in late middle age who shambles through the door. He’s dressed in a frayed sports jacket with a newspaper and a bottle poking from one of the pockets, a grubby grandad vest, worn grey flannel trousers and mud-encrusted tennis shoes. “What you doin’ ‘ere, Daniel Butleigh? What you got behind your back?”

He brandishes a bunch of daffodils, their stems tied with an elastic band.

“Well, I was goin’ to give these to you, Jane me lover, but you bein’ in one o’ your moods I reckon this fair young damsel should ‘ave ‘em instead.” He bows theatrically in front of me, his eyes fastened on my bosom. “Cause if that en’t a sight to make a statue weep...”

Gerald takes a step forward, but I lay my hand on his forearm.

“It’s all right, darling,” I assure him, accepting the proffered blooms while doing my utmost to keep a straight face.

“Those ‘ad better not ‘ave come from my stock,” the shopkeeper warns Butleigh.

“No, they’d better not,” I say, backing her up.

“Course they didn’t,” he protests. “I got ‘em from the churchyard.”

Jane and I turn to one another, open-mouthed.

“Have you ever...?” she gasps.

“I don’t know how he has the nerve,” I fume.

“Well, since I’m not appreciated ‘ere I reckon I’ll be off to Wearyall Hill,” announces Butleigh. “No better way to spend an afternoon than sittin’ on the grass with a crossword, a drop o’ cider an’ a pasty.”

“I hope you fall asleep an’ it rains an’ you catch your death o’ cold, you smelly old bugger,” Jane calls after him.

“And you can take these with you,” I add, thrusting the flowers into his hands.

“The Dwyers,” Gerald reminds me.

Butleigh spins in the doorway, his inane expression gone.

“You know ‘em?”

“As a matter of fact we don’t,” says Gerald.

“You keep it that way, my friend. For your good lady’s sake, you keep it that way.”

“What the devil do you mean by that?”

Butleigh doesn’t stay to elaborate. Gerald starts to stride after him, then reconsiders when he sees me shaking my head.

“So what did he mean?” I ask Jane.

“Oh, don’t you take any notice of ‘im, me dear. He’s well known round ‘ere for spreadin’ stories. En’t none of ‘em ever been worth listenin’ to. I reckon it’s all that scrumpy ‘e drinks. Rots the brain as well as the guts.”

As soon as we’re back outside I light a cigarette. Gerald looks around for Butleigh, but there’s no sign of him.

For your good lady’s sake…

Egerton said Helen Sutton was suffering from some kind of mental illness, one that remained dormant in her brain until she received the casket. What he didn’t tell me was how such an affliction could be passed from one person to another.

…then Helen said summat to ‘er, must’ve been in French ‘cause I never understood a word of it, and yer know what, the frog went down like a sack o’ taties.

That was the trigger. But how exactly were de Monnier and the others infected to begin with?

I push back my fringe, then take a paper tissue from my bag to wipe the perspiration from my hands. Gerald’s expression shows that he’s aware of my unease.

“If you’d rather not do this…”

I manage a stoical smile.

“And tell Kerrie I was put off by what some drunken layabout said? Come on, let’s get it over with.”

33 Chalice Lane is part of a two-storey pre-war terrace, each house sharing with one of its neighbours a covered passageway leading to the garden at the rear. An apple tree grows in the centre of the Dwyers’ front lawn; the grass around it needs cutting, but there are no signs of outright neglect. A squeaky gate seems to be the only other matter requiring attention.

Gerald stops a few paces from the door.

“You don’t have to come in with me,” he says. “I’m sure Jane wouldn’t mind if you waited in the shop.”

“But I might.”

“Still…”

“You heard what she said. The guy’s a nutcase. Besides, I’ve invested too much in this to back out now.”

“I appreciate that, Ruth. But I feel responsible for you.”

“Yeah, well I’m not used to placing myself under someone else’s protection.”

He looks me straight in the eye.

“In view of what happened yesterday evening, you’re having it none the less.”

His paternalism makes me want to lock antlers with him — then I recall that he’s the stag and I’m now a doe.

Yet if a doe submits unconditionally to a dominant male, a girl who has her head screwed on tightly enough can use her surrender to gain the upper hand.

“I’m sorry, I know this isn’t a game. And I admit I feel a lot safer for having you around. Kerrie knew what she was doing when she took you on board, she really did.”

“I’ll whisk you out of there at the first hint of trouble,” he promises me.

“I know you will,” I smile.

Job done. I’ve accepted Gerald as my knight in shining armour, and in return we’ll have no more nonsense about me hiding in a corner shop. To seal the bargain I slide my fingers through his as we wait for someone to answer the door.

After about thirty seconds an elderly gentleman with thin white hair opens it as far as the security chain will permit.

“Mr Dwyer?” enquires Gerald.

“Who wants to know?” croaks the old man in a mild Welsh accent.

“My name’s Gerald Cooper, and this is Ruth, my wife.”

“We have some news for Susan,” I add. “I assume you’re her father.”

He nods, but at the same time his expression darkens. Convinced that he’s going to tell us either that she’s dead or has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, I move even closer to the man at my side.

“What kind o’ news?”

“I’m afraid someone she was acquainted with has passed away,” says Gerald.

“Oh. Well, I’ll have to see then, won’t I? Wait there, I shan’t be a tick.”

Dwyer shuffles back along the hallway and begins climbing the stairs one by one. It looks as if he’ll be gone for more than a tick, and quite a few tocks as well.

“He doesn’t seem particularly dangerous,” I remark as I disengage my fingers from Gerald’s, then take my vanity case from my shoulder bag and begin checking my make-up.

“He isn’t. He’s scared.”

“Of us?”

“Of his daughter.”

I find that hard to believe. If Susan had posed any kind of threat to the general public, surely de Monnier would have taken steps to isolate her.

Dwyer admits us a few minutes later. He explains that Susan is willing to talk to me, but not my husband. Gerald bridles at this, and I have to swear to him that I’ll call for help the moment I feel threatened. If I was the heroine in a fairy tale he’d be scaling the castle walls long before the evil prince had a chance to seduce me. Feeling his eyes trained on my back, I follow the directions to Susan’s room.

I knock and go in, leaving the door ajar. The first thing I notice is the canvas leaning against the wall to my right. Although the picture it will eventually hold has only been sketched in pencil, I can tell immediately that it’s an accurate representation of the mosque Helen Sutton photographed fifteen years ago.

“It’s unfinished. Rather like me.”

The woman occupying the chintz armchair by the window is, as I expected, in her middle thirties. Her dark hair is brushed forward into a shoulder-length bob, which helps soften her angular features. The jacket and skirt she’s wearing look to be made from a similar material to the velvety fabric Kerrie and I found in Northcroft. But it’s her ebony lips and bejewelled, black-nailed hands that obviate the need for any clarification of her statement.

The casket was sent to Helen as a trigger…it was an instruction to turn herself into a kuzkardesh gara and begin spreading the infection around.

Susan Dwyer’s transformation has been halted in its early stages. That must be what Egerton and de Monnier came here to achieve, possibly by confiscating the implements Susan needed to complete it.

But how were the seeds of her desire to become one of those monstrosities sown?

She beckons me across but doesn’t rise from her seat. As if the very air she’s exhaling may be contaminated, I edge towards her.

“Where do you live, Ruth Cooper?” she asks me, letting an arm fall theatrically over the back of the chair.

“We’ve travelled up from Cosham, near Portsmouth.”

“Have you indeed? That’s quite a long journey. I don’t think you came all that way just to give a complete stranger news of Helen Sutton’s death.”

My eyes widen, but only a little. She could have heard it from Egerton and de Monnier.

“How did you know it was Helen?”

“First tell me the real reason for your visit.”

“Fair enough.” I reach into my bag for one of the copies Kerrie and I made of the four names and addresses in Helen Sutton’s notebook and hand it to her. She reads it, showing no perceptible reaction. “The source where I found that list contains a photograph of the four of you, taken in the summer of 1964. There’s another, of Sarah-Jane looking very different...”

Susan’s brows lift a fraction of an inch, and for the first time I notice the tiny black gemstones fixed to them, separated by gaps so small each line forms what could easily be mistaken for a single pencilled arch.

Just like Suki Tatsukichi’s.

“You don’t have to be circumspect,” she scolds me. “We both know what she is. What I almost became.”

“I’m sorry, that wasn’t very tactful of me. I–“

She waves my apology away.

“Sarah-Jane is a kuzkardesh gara. The movement was founded in the first decade of this century by an Austrian woman named Chrysanthemum von Witzleben. It’s a sisterhood modelled on a community she came across whilst on an archaeological expedition in what was then Chinese Turkestan.”

“So where were the photographs taken?”

“Southern Bucovina. It’s part of Romania now, but before the First World War it belonged to the Austrian Empire. The area was sufficiently remote for Frau von Witzleben to establish her hive without fear of it coming to the attention of the authorities.”

Bucovina, eh? Never heard of it, but that’s nothing a half-decent atlas won’t put right.

“Isn’t Romania a communist country?”

“How and why we came to be in Bucovina is classified information. Although I feel no loyalty towards the people who sent us there, I’m not willing to break the law for someone who for all I know could be a secret agent herself.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” Susan points to the edge of the bed and waits for me to sit, watching the way I cross one thigh over the other, rest my bag against my right hip and use my other hand to push my fringe away from my forehead. Although each of these movements has become second nature to me, I feel more self-conscious about performing them than at any time since I became female. It’s as if she knows I haven’t always been a woman, and is ticking a series of mental boxes to see how well I’ve adjusted to the change. “Who do you think those women are?”

“They’re obviously a religious group of some sort. An Islamic sect, maybe?”

“You couldn’t be more wrong. They don’t believe in any kind of supreme being. Their faith, if that’s what you want to call it, is in the power of the universal female mind.”

It’s the kind of half-baked mystical claptrap I ought to have foreseen. But I won’t get Susan to tell me very much by laughing in her face.

“What does that mean in practical terms?” I ask.

“A group intelligence. It operates at a subconscious level, so that each kuzkardesh gara has the same set of attitudes, values and preferences as the others in her hive. In every way that matters, they function as a single organism.”

A single appearance, a single set of opinions, a single purpose. They’re a totalitarian regime, a religious cult and a zombie plague all rolled into one.

Egerton wasn’t making any of that up. But it still strikes me as something you’d only expect to find in an episode of Doctor Who.

“I’m not sure I follow you. How can that happen? What’s the mechanism that brings it about?”

Susan shakes her head. She might be a Geography mistress trying to explain the principles of Central Place Theory to a class of remedial twelve year olds.

“You’re looking at it from the wrong angle, Ruth. A collective subconscious is the default condition for every sentient species that evolves. The idea of individuality is an illusion, a survival technique Homo sapiens developed during the transition from a hunting and gathering society to one based on agriculture, when instead of living in extended family groups women were confined to small, isolated farms. But as that’s a comparatively recent departure from the norm it can be eradicated fairly easily. All most of us need is something to kick-start the relevant mental processes.”

Half-baked mystical claptrap dressed up as science. All bases covered.

“Why do they shave their heads?” I’m curious to know.

“The universal mind is by definition egalitarian.” She toys with the strands falling across her left ear, grimacing with distaste. “Hair grows in idiosyncratic ways. It serves no purpose other than to feed the chimera of selfhood.”

“And the black make-up and tattoos?”

“They draw attention away from the other aspects of a woman’s appearance, and so act to level the playing field, as it were. A plain face like mine is enhanced, a beautiful one disfigured.”

Enhanced? Who are you trying to fool?

I still don’t know why this coven of witches has got de Monnier and the spooks at the MoD in such a tizzy. Maybe it’s time I changed tack.

“How long were you out there?”

“Just under a fortnight altogether.”

“The thing is, I can see how an impressionable young girl like Sarah-Jane Collingwood might fall for this ‘universal mind’ stuff if she’d been indoctrinated in it for months,” I argue. “But to make that kind of decision after what, a few days?”

“There was no ‘decision’, Ruth. It doesn’t work like that. You don’t experience an epiphany when you lose your individual awareness. It still feels like being you. What’s changed is that your emotional and psychological responses are now identical to those of every other kuzkardesh gara. Imagine living in a street where everyone starts the day with a cup of tea except you, who always have coffee. One morning you walk into the kitchen and instead of coffee you make tea, because that’s what you prefer first thing. You don’t suddenly think of yourself as a tea drinker. You just like tea, the same as your neighbours.”

Epiphany…

Didn’t one of the Sawdons use that word when we were talking to them in Bywell?

Hell’s teeth, what did they actually say?

No doubt I’ll remember later on. But first there’s another line of enquiry I have to pursue.

“Then tell me why it took more than fourteen years for it to work on you and Helen Sutton. And how the two visitors you entertained last Tuesday were able to stop your conversion halfway through.”

Her mouth curls in a mocking smile.

“Do you know why I agreed to talk to you? It wasn’t to answer your questions but to warn you that humanity is fighting a losing battle. The genie is out of the lamp, and no one is going to put it back.” Abruptly, her expression turns blank. She raises her chin, as though she’s listening to a conversation in the next room. “You struggle against us now, Ruth Cooper, but that which is within you may not be gainsaid. One shall be all, then all shall be as one.”

Susan’s voice has become so chilling that I have to call on every ounce of resolve I possess not to jump up and run from the room.

“What are you talking about?” I ask her.

“You have heard but not understood. Dig beneath the illusion of selfhood and all will be made clear to you.”

The illusion of selfhood.

The Sawdons used that phrase as well…

“What about men?” I ask in an attempt to change the subject. “How do they fit into this twisted utopia?”

“They are necessary to perpetuate our species, and to provide for us when we’re carrying and raising our children. In return we pleasure them, in ways most have never dreamed of.”

She begins licking her black lips. She couldn’t look any more reptilian if her tongue shot out to capture a passing insect.

“I’ve had about as much of this as I can stomach,” I spit at her. “Your dad’s frightened to death of you, and now I know why.”

Susan lifts off her wig. Her hairless scalp is perfectly smooth, apart the row of livid purple scabs going back from the centre of her forehead.

“You know nothing,” she hisses. “You are not even aware of your own potential.”

She begins to rise from her chair. I stand at the same time, backing away from her.

“What potential?” I can’t help asking.

“That is not for Susan Dwyer to say. She is incomplete. She peers through the veil of individuality.”

Her hand moves to my right cheek. I push it away angrily, accidentally knocking over a waste basket in my hurry to leave. Slamming the door behind me, I scuttle down the stairs.

Gerald is waiting in the hallway. I lose my footing and feel myself fall forwards, but he’s there to catch me.

“Are you all right, Ruth?”

“Just get me out of here,” I growl into his shirt.

I’m lighting up even as he turns the latch. Just as it did in Bywell, the feeling that I’m completely out of my depth enshrouds me like a fog.

All most of us need is something to kick-start the relevant mental processes.

In Helen Sutton’s case it was the casket.

But who sent it to her?

And why did de Monnier leave it lying around in 6 Redheugh Close for four and a half months?

Not much dust. That means whoever it was, they were here fairly recently.

She didn’t.

The intruders who filled that crate with sandbags and pushed it against the door weren’t burglars at all. They broke in to put the casket back.

Just in time for Kerrie Latimer to find it.

But why, for heaven’s sake? What has Kerrie to do with any of this?

We’re too close to a result to allow anyone to cock things up.

Cunningham knows.

And I bet he could also tell me why Sarah-Jane Collingwood and the others were taken to Bucovina fifteen years ago.

At the front gate Gerald turns to me.

“It might be best to get it out into the open now,” he suggests, and for a moment all I want is for him to take me in his arms again and just hold me for a while.

“We can talk in the car,” is all I trust myself to say.

“You look as if you could do with a stiff drink.”

I let the cigarette fall to the pavement and grind it out with my heel. What I need is a ride back to Northcroft so I can forget about all this crap and get on with the rest of my life.

The genie is out of the lamp, and no one is going to put it back.

Yet if I walk away now those words might haunt me to the grave.

Or until I suddenly find I’m wearing black lip gloss and nail varnish…

“Do you know where Bucovina is?” I ask as we walk back along Chalice Lane.

“I’m not sure. In Eastern Europe, by the sound of it. Why?”

Full stop. Period. Punkt.

Because someone out there has discovered a new kind of consciousness, one that can be transmitted into a person’s mind and change them into a being that can no longer be thought of as fully human.

And they want to make us all the same as them.

“That’s where they went, Susan and the rest of them,” I reply. “It was one of the few things I could get out of her that made any sense.”

Yep, even as the end of the world hoves into plain view the lies just keep on coming.

Wearing only bathrobes and fluffy slippers, Kerrie Latimer and I watch Dave Compton’s van chug along Woodford Road and turn left into Rectory Lane. The vehicle is heading for Havant railway station, where Padraig and Eamonn will soon begin the journey back to the industrial north-west. Their filial duties done, the boys are eager to resume the carefree independence they’ve come to take for granted.

Let them enjoy it while they can.

“They’ll have a story or two to tell,” says their mother, sweeping back the longer side of her dark brown hair.”Especially Pad…”

I ignore the insinuation. All I did was accept her son’s offer to take me out for a drink. Wasn’t I supposed to be upset after the meeting with my husband had gone so badly? Why would I pass up the chance to enjoy myself for an hour?

And it’s not as though anything untoward happened. True, we spent rather longer in Rosie’s kitchen than I’d planned, but it was all relatively prim and proper. I’m not going to take myself to task just because I was completely unprepared for a move I really ought to have seen coming, or nurture feelings of guilt about how far I allowed things to proceed before I brought them to a halt. I need to get used to that sort of intimacy even if it doesn’t excite me, so that I can take it in my stride and perhaps begin giving back as good as I get.

At least I resisted Padraig’s attempts to push his tongue between my lips more successfully than I did with Cunningham.

I only hope that when he finally worked out that if he felt my tit I’d give an involuntary gasp of surprise he thought the four or five minutes of proper snogging that followed were worth the wait.

At the side door Kerrie lays a hand on my forearm.

“Have you thought any more about this afternoon?”

“We’re just meeting Gerald at the library, aren’t we?”

“And Rosie for lunch. At the Queens, remember? She’ll be with a client, so it’s important that we don’t show her up. Why don’t you grab a pair of tights from my room and nip next door to put your face on while I sort something out for you?”

Yes, let’s put on a show for Rosie’s benefit. Never mind that a few years from now we might both have been turned into bald-headed fanatics helping to hunt down the few pockets of women who are still human.

Or be in thrall to the military dictatorship that emerges when it becomes clear that there’s no other way to stop the country from being taken over.

But as it’s my last day here I suffer Kerrie’s ministrations with virtuous fortitude, surfacing from them in a dark grey jacket, a sleeveless black top, a fashionably full patterned cotton skirt and black, medium-heeled shoes. She, on the other hand, elects for a light green suit and pearls — which suggests it might not be Rosie she’s out to impress.

We have time for coffee before we leave to catch the bus into Portsmouth. Kerrie hands me a mug and sits at the kitchen table, gesturing for me to join her. As I arrange the folds of my skirt I sense the vexation she’s been holding in check since we waved the boys away break free from its restraints. I haven’t told her everything about my encounter with Susan Dwyer and she knows it.

To avoid her eyes I open my bag and take out my vanity case so I can fuss with my fringe. The centre parting I put in after I showered has gone on its travels again; once I’m back in Northcroft I’ll let Janice loose on my recalcitrant locks, treat them to a reprimand they’ll be slow to forget.

Kerrie fingers her pearls.

“I’m going to Scotland,” she announces without warning. “Dunoon, where the Macready family live. I need to talk to one of those women myself.”

Make way for the chickens coming home to roost.

I sip from my mug, wondering how on earth I can deter her from making a trip that if she’s lucky she’ll come to look back on as a complete waste of time.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” I ask her, when what I really ought to be saying is you haven’t a bloody clue what to expect because I didn’t have the courage to tell anyone.

“I know what I’m letting myself in for, sweetheart. Gerry told me how distressed you were yesterday. He said he’d have pulled into a lay-by and given you a cuddle, but you might have thought that was forward of him.”

“I think he realised I’d have just burst into tears.”

“He’s a lovely man, isn’t he? I only wish he was able to come with us.”

Us?

She’s having me on. She must be.

“There you go again,” I sigh.

“I don’t understand…”

“Making assumptions. Demands.” I cover her hand with my own. “Look love, I know you need to find out how your dad knew Helen Sutton, and I wish you all the best, I really do. But I’ve had enough. I just want to go home.”

And make the most of my new life before the world turns to shit.

Kerrie smiles, but not with her eyes.

“I suppose I’ll have to fly solo, then.”

“How are you going to get there? Okay, Cockburns will have fixed your car by now, but you can’t drive it until you’ve had your insurance documents replaced.”

“I wasn’t thinking of going this week.”

“And what about Norah? She isn’t going to put up with me taking another three or four days off, next week or next month or whenever it is you decide to drag me into the wild blue yonder. She’s not just my employer, she’s my landlady as well. If I lose my job at the Gladstone I’m out on the street.”

“I can deal with her.”

“I mean, do you even know where Dunoon is? Do you know which port the ferry sails from? Can you actually get on a boat without someone there to…”

She slides her hand from mine, and I realise at once that I’ve gone too far.

A muscular arm pushing me roughly aside, its owner fully aware of the bulging maternity dress beneath my coat.

The memory only lasts for a moment, but it’s enough.

Kerrie survived the sinking of the Loch Garman. Her unborn child didn’t.

That’s why she was so ill at ease on the Isle of Wight ferry. Every inch of the crossing, every nut and bolt on that vessel reminded her of the baby she lost.

I begin to apologise, then think again. She’d ask me how I knew, and I’m not sure I can answer that question. Even if I could, I’m determined not to tell her any more lies.

Better for us both if our friendship sputters out like a camp fire in a sudden shower.

*

Bucovina

Province of Romania on eastern slopes of Carpathian Mts, roughly size of Yorks + Lancs combined

Part of Habsburg Empire 1775 — 1918

Northern Bucovina annexed by USSR in 1944

Population 1,600,000

97.5% Romanian, rest Ukrainian, German, Roma (gypsies)

Largest city Suceava (118,000)

Most towns + industry in NE

SW mountainous, economy based on logging, pastoral farming

Famous for painted monastries (Romanian Orthodox)

No history of Islam anywhere in province — mosque somewhere else or built specially for kuzkardesh gara? If so where did money come from?

Vatra Bucovinei

Small town at confluence of Dorna + Bistrita rivers

Near border with Transylvania (Borgo pass = vampires!!!) on main road from Cluj - Suceava

Railway from Cluj ends in mountains

So does line from Suceava its like the middle bit was cut out

Cant find Dragoiasa in index - maybe its too small

I put down my pen and close the encyclopaedia with a thump that draws a censorious glare from the middle-aged library assistant. In retaliation I flick back my fringe, then make as much noise as I can getting up from the chair. He’s still frowning, so I pretend to rub at a stain on the side of my skirt, lifting the hem a good eight or nine inches above the knee. I’m only sorry I’m wearing tights and not stockings; a flash of suspender would have his specs steaming up so badly he’d need an ice bucket to clear the lenses.

It’s that time of the month, I guess.

At the other end of Portsmouth Central Library’s reference area Gerald and Kerrie are each scribbling their own set of notes. As I reach the table Kerrie takes off her glasses and puts them in their case.

“How did you get on?” she enquires, and if there was the slightest doubt that we’re no longer friends it’s removed by the stare she throws at me when I place my sheet of A4 in front of Gerald instead of her.

“Bucovina’s in the north-east corner of Romania,” I tell him. “I had a look in the atlas — it’s about as far off the beaten track as you can get.”

Six months ago I would have drawn him a map, and a damn good one too. Now I’d just be wasting ink.

Gerald glances up from the weighty tome he’s consulting. The title’s got something to do with the Silk Road — he thinks the belief system I told him Susan Dwyer described to me could easily have been influenced by Buddhist teachings, so he’s concentrating on areas where they might have diffused into Islamic culture.

“Romania...” he muses. “Yes, there are bound to be a few Turkish enclaves left over from the days when it was under Ottoman rule. Mainly on the Black Sea coast, I imagine.”

“This place is up in the mountains, this Vatra however-you-say-it. Dracula country. I can’t think for the life of me what a mosque might be doing there.”

Kerrie picks up her bag.

“I’m going to phone home, find out if Niamh’s back yet,” she says to Gerald. “Won’t be long.”

While she’s gone I skim through the three pages she’s written about the various branches of the Islamic faith that have been condemned through the ages as heretical. Although there are more of these than I’d expected, none of them involve women to a more significant degree than the mainstream. Nor did they develop a conception of their deity that differs in any fundamental way from that first espoused by the Patriarchs in the Old Testament.

“This is a waste of time,” I mutter to myself. “Susan said they didn’t believe in a God.”

Gerald pushes the piece of paper I gave him back across the table.

“Best to explore every possibility. She may have been trying to put you off the scent.”

“What, so I can’t tell when I’m being lied to?”

Yes, I think it’s safe to say that my period’s coming on.

Gerald doesn’t rise to the bait. Instead he’s jabbing his finger at the page in front of him.

“This may be worth investigating. It’s about an expedition to central Asia mounted by the University of Vienna in 1908.”

“Does it say anything about the von Witzleben woman?”

“It hasn’t mentioned her so far…”

Rather than pull a chair round, I move to stand behind him and lean forward, resting my palm lightly on his shoulder. The small portion of my brain that isn’t overdosing on female hormones warns me that I shouldn’t really let my right breast snuggle against his neck like this, but it’s a voice crying in an oestrogen-drenched wilderness. If anything I press it closer as I make a last-ditch effort to concentrate on the task at hand.

The team left Austria on July 26th, and sailed from the port of Trieste...

He seems comfortable enough with this…

...from Rawalpindi over the Hindu Kush into Chinese Turkestan...

He didn’t flinch or anything…

...the Tarim Basin, much of which is taken up by the Takla Makan desert, one of the most hostile places on earth. The name translates into the local tongue as ‘if you go in, you don’t come out’...

He won’t think I’m trying it on…

...the lost cities where according to legend a federation of tribes known to Chinese historians as the Yueh-chih...

He’ll know I’m just being friendly…

...and despite a search lasting several weeks no trace of the expedition was ever found.

He must attract this sort of attention from women all the time…

Cool it, babe. You’re all over the guy. What are you going to do if he comes on to you? That ring you’re wearing tells him you’re no blushing virgin. It doesn’t matter how big a thing he’s got for Kerrie, if he thinks he’s on a promise with you he’ll expect it to be kept.

I shift slightly to the left so my tit isn’t in danger of brushing Gerald’s cheek; I could take a step backwards and still see the text, but I don’t want to give the impression that I’ve suddenly decided to shy away from him.

“So they all died in the desert,” I conclude. “That’s a shame.”

“I wonder...”

He gets up and walks briskly over to the shelf containing the encyclopaedias. When he comes back he’s carrying a volume entitled Who Was Who.

“It won’t have foreigners in there, will it?” I frown.

“Chrysanthemum’s an English name. It may just be that...ah, here’s the lady we’ve been looking for! Our Frau von Witzleben was born Miss Whitmore in 1876. Her husband Werner was an anthropologist based at the University of Vienna. According to this she was quite an authority in her own right.”

I follow Gerald’s finger with my own, not quite able to prevent them coming into contact with one another.

“And they both died in 1908. Presumed killed in Chinese Turkestan.”

It was composed in an extraordinarily old-fashioned style, like something from the Victorian era. No eighteen year old could possibly have written prose that elaborate and long-winded.

Were the letters the Collingwoods received dictated by Chrysanthemum herself? It’s not out of the question, though she would have been nearly ninety when Sarah-Jane was converted. Or is it that every kuzkardesh gara is somehow imprinted with Chrysanthemum’s command of her mother tongue? If what Susan said was true and they share a common subconscious, that might not be such a ridiculous idea.

What did the von Witzlebens find out there? What elemental force did they awaken? And why does Chrysanthemum appear to be the only member of the expedition that survived?

“I think we ought to congratulate ourselves, my dear,” smiles Gerald. “We’ve gone some way towards solving a seventy year old mystery.”

I wouldn’t want him betting his business on it. I’ve a feeling we’ve only just started assembling the clues.

*

There is a point at which the unthinkable, having mutated almost unnoticed into first the improbable, then the possible and from that to the very likely, finally becomes the inevitable. As I stub out my seventh cigarette since we returned to Woodford Road two and three-quarter hours ago, I have no choice but to accept that the process has run its course.

Cathryn Simmons and Niamh Latimer are missing.

Kerrie is pacing backwards and forwards in the living room. Dave, Rosie, Gerald, Sinead and I look on helplessly as she becomes increasingly distraught.

“She’d ‘ave called by now. In’t that right, Ro? Wouldn’t she ‘ave called by now? Of course she would. Then why ‘asn’t she? They’re in trouble. I know they are. It’s them two, in’t it, Ruth? First me car, then Sunday night, and now this. I’m right, aren’t I?”

I stretch my legs in front of me, smoothing the front of my skirt for no other reason than to give my hands something to do. My mouth remains shut; I can’t say anything helpful without referring to the conversation I had in London with Egerton, and that would lay me open to all sorts of accusations.

Why did he have to put me in this position? Now the woodwork is creaking with secrets waiting to pop out from it.

Next time I see that wanker I’ll cut off his balls and fry them in their own semen.

“You should try calling St John’s again,” suggests Gerald, giving me a stare that tells me I should have said something, no matter how vacuous.

“Haven’t you been listenin’?” Kerrie rounds on him. “Millicent goes for ‘er transfusions on Tuesdays. They usually keep ‘er in overnight, and Celeste stays in hospital wi’ ‘er till she falls asleep. She might not be back till nine or ten. What do we do in meantime? We can’t phone police, they’ll just say it ‘asn’t been long enough.”

Sinead digs me in the ribs.

“I don’t understand,” she whispers in my ear. “What’s in this book you and mum found that they want so badly?”

“Two or three old photographs, that’s all. We didn’t think it was worth mentioning.”

“Looks like you were wrong.”

“Yeah, it’s all my fault. None of this would have happened if I’d told your mum to get stuffed and she’d travelled back here on her own, would it?”

“She asked you to come with her? So all that about your husband–“

“Was a load of crap. Happy now?”

The need to replace my tampon provides me with an excuse to spend a few precious minutes in the peace and quiet of Rosie’s bathroom. After that I sit on the bed, doing my utmost not to think of Yvette de Monnier sweeping aside Niamh’s beautiful coppery tresses and touching a small metallic device to the smooth skin covering the top of her spine.

Ending the girl’s life as surely as if she’d fired a bullet into her brain.

I’ve just decided to risk being dismembered by Rosie for ignoring her rule about not smoking in the house when her ex-husband appears at the door.

“Any news?” I ask without much hope.

“We’ve agreed to wait until nine o’clock, and if she still can’t get through I’ll drive David down to The Hard so we can catch the last ferry over.”

I look at my watch.

“Nearly an hour…I don’t know if I’ll be able to stand the tension that long. God, what a mess.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

Gerald steps towards the bed, reaches for my hand and pulls me to my feet. One look at his face tells me I might be about to discover a side to his personality I won’t enjoy.

“What’s the matter…?”

“I’ll tell you what the matter is. I don’t like to see someone for whom I care deeply being made to suffer. Nor do I have very much time for those who prove economical with the truth.”

I meet his gaze full on. Anything else would be as sure an admission of guilt as a signed affidavit.

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“‘Susan said they didn’t believe in a God.’ That was the comment you made this afternoon when you were reading Kerrie’s notes. Yesterday you told us she’d confirmed your original idea, namely that the kuzkardesh gara were — and I quote — ‘an offshoot of Islam’. You can lock the door against a thief, but a liar…”

“I didn’t lie. Well, not as such. Okay, I did. It’s complicated.”

“Then you’d better simplify things for me, young lady, because you’re not moving from that spot until you do.”

Think fast, babe. The longer you prevaricate, the less convincing you’ll sound.

It all comes down to why Egerton and de Monnier have gone to so much trouble to get their hands on a list of names and a few snapshots.

The casket was sent to Helen as a trigger...it was an instruction to turn herself into a kuzkardesh gara and begin spreading the infection around.

A trigger that also began to work on Susan Dwyer, who was with her in Bucovina.

We don’t want her to have it. That goes for the photographs as well.

But Kerrie can’t have been there. She was eight months pregnant with Niamh at the time, and had four other children to look after.

So why does she need protecting?

Unless it’s someone else they’re worried about.

Someone close to her.

Someone who may well have visited Bucovina during her years as an archaeologist.

She says I’m gifted.

Jesus Christ, no...

“Tell her to call the police!” I cry. “Right this minute! I think Cathryn’s–“

“Gerry? Ruth? Where are you? She’s talking to Celeste!”

We race downstairs in response to Rosie’s news. Following her next door, all we can do is listen as the daylight fades and with it any chance that I might be mistaken.

“That’s ridiculous...she wouldn’t, not without telling me, I mean she just wouldn’t...I’ve known her for years, Celeste, she would never...’instructions’? What d’you mean, ‘instructions’? What do they say?”

At least a minute goes by, then Kerrie puts the phone down and turns to us, her face ashen.

“Cathryn’s gone,” she says in a barely audible voice. “She’s taken Niamh and gone. Celeste has been told to place Millicent in a nursing home and arrange for St John’s to be sold off. The shop as well. She isn’t coming back.”

Everyone seems to begin talking at once. Everyone except Gerald, who grasps my elbow and marches me into the garden.

“I want the truth,” he growls. “And I want it now.”

I yank my forearm free.

“Give me a break. I’ve only just worked out what’s going on.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Okay, but you’ll think I’m making most of it up.”

“That’s for me to decide.”

I’m desperate for a cigarette, but my bag is still in the bedroom. When will I learn never to let it out of my sight?

“It all goes back to last November when Tim and I split up,” I begin, speaking slowly to give me the time I’ll need to construct a credible version of the previous Ruth’s story and mesh it with my own. “We were lab technicians attached to a project financed by the MoD. It was all very hush-hush, and I knew when I handed in my resignation I’d be sworn to secrecy and all that. What I didn’t expect was that they’d pack me off to Northcroft in January as a spy.”

I pause for effect, but Gerald Cooper has seen and done a lot in his time, and he’s several steps ahead of me.

“They recruited you as a sleeper. They’d managed to cover up the fact that Helen Sutton was a kuzkardesh gara when she died, but they were anxious to have someone at the scene they could call on if any loose ends needed tidying up. As you were familiar with the area from your childhood, you must have seemed the ideal choice. Not that they’ll have told you any of this, am I right?”

“You’re dead right. All they said was I’d be contacted if my services were required. I had no idea they were behind this business with the will. It was only when I found out that the Navy had lied to the Collingwoods about their daughter that I began to put two and two together. I’ll be honest here and admit that I didn’t say anything to Kerrie because first I didn’t have enough to go on and second, well I mean how was I to know she was who she said she was? It’s the easiest thing in the world to forge a solicitor’s letter if the only person you’re going to show it to is a barmaid.”

“Yet in spite of your misgivings you agreed to accompany her here.”

“By that time Egerton and de Monnier had revealed their true colours. Kerrie tried to put a brave face on it, but I could tell she thought she was in real danger. That pair had gone to absurd lengths to steal the casket, so it stood to reason they’d make every effort to get their hands on the notebook as well.”

“As was proved on Sunday evening.”

“Exactly. The thing that bothered me most was why they didn’t take the casket earlier, when it was sitting at the bottom of a wall closet in an empty house. Then I remembered the struggle we’d had to get into that room because of the crate someone had wedged on the other side of the door. Burglars, obviously — or so we assumed. And they’d been in quite recently, judging by the lack of dust on the window ledge. But why leave the casket behind? Anyone with half a brain could see it was worth a couple of hundred quid at least. Unless of course they put it there for us to find.”

Gerald’s eyes darken.

“You mean for Kerrie to find.”

“Knowing she’d take it back with her as a present for Cathryn. Egerton and de Monnier didn’t want the casket for themselves, they were trying to stop Kerrie from showing it to her. Cathryn had something to do with what happened in Bucovina. I think that’s what this has been about from the start.”

I don’t have time to expand on this theory, as Kerrie is standing in the kitchen door beckoning us to join her. She looks drawn but calm and in control.

“A spot of good fortune. On Thursday David overheard Niamh mention Dover on the phone. It seems this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

“She can’t take Niamh out of the country,” Gerald assures her.

“You don’t know Cathryn. She can do any damn thing she likes when she puts her mind to it. Anyway, David’s been on to the harbour police and given them full descriptions. We’re setting off straight away, so we should be there not that long after midnight. Sinead’s staying with Ro. I know it’s a lot to ask, Gerry, but–“

“You’d like me to go across to Ryde, and see what I can uncover at that end. Consider it done.”

“You’re a love,” she says, squeezing his hand. “But go easy on the maid. She’s ever so timid.”

“I may be able to help there,” I put in.

“I agree,” says Gerald. “Ruth’s met the girl. I haven’t.”

“I thought you were keen to get home,” Kerrie frowns at me.

“Yeah, well things have changed.”

“There’s a lot Ruth hasn’t been able to tell you,” Gerald explains. “She had her reasons, and after listening to them I believe she acted in what she felt were your best interests.”

“Is that true?” Kerrie demands to know.

“It wouldn’t have done you any good,” I contend. “It certainly wouldn’t have prevented any of this.”

“That’s hardly the issue. I trusted you.”

“And you were right to do so,” maintains Gerald. “In my opinion she–“

“Okay, okay!” cries Kerrie, holding up her hands. “We’ll continue this discussion once I’ve got my daughter back.”

She picks up her bag and walks over to the van. When the door closes behind her, it’s as if an epoch has come to an end.

My friend Cathryn brought it back from a dig outside Luxor. Of course she had to give all that up when her mum’s health began to fail.

Was that really only a week ago? It seems like months…

It’s a shame, she had such a promising career ahead of her, but you never know what’s around the next corner, do you?

No, I guess you never do.

It’s well after ten by the time Gerald pulls the Citroen to a halt outside the front entrance to St John’s House. The building is in darkness; although I called Celeste and told her we were coming over on the last car ferry, it’s occurred to me more than once that she may have cut and run, fearing that the wrath of God is about to descend on her — which it may yet do, if my companion’s expression is any guide to his frame of mind.

“She said to let ourselves in,” I mention to him as I check my make-up. “It was one of the few bits I could actually understand, she was crying so much.”

“I suppose we’ll have to convince her that it’s all under control, that there’s every chance Niamh will be back with her mother in the morning.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?”

“Remember Kerrie saying Dave had given the authorities descriptions of them both? I think you’ll find Niamh has very short hair now, and that it’s been dyed the same colour as mine. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cathryn looks totally different as well.” I lift a few of the dark strands resting on my right shoulder. “Before she came here Celeste was a hairdresser. And before Sunday I was a redhead.”

“Were you indeed?”

“Ginger, same as Kerrie.”

“Both of you? I’d never have known.”

“You’re not meant to, that’s the point.”

I feel my mouth curl in a coquettish grin, and immediately regret it. The only way I could have chosen a more inappropriate moment to flirt with this man — this man! — was if we’d been at his dying mother’s bedside.

Fortunately his eyes tell me he’s as much in need of a little light relief as I am.

We leave the car and walk carefully along the short path leading to the porch. Gerald turns the handle and pushes open a door that gives onto a pitch-black hallway. I begin to follow him inside, but he puts out a hand and whispers that it might be best if I remain on the threshold until he’s sure the house is safe. I don’t argue; he’s the one with the military background, and in an uncertain situation like this I’m more than happy to be the junior partner.

Suddenly there’s light. Celeste is descending the wide staircase, dressed in a rich red robe decorated with stylised silhouettes of African warriors. She lowers her face as I move towards her, as clear a confession as I could have wished for.

“Celeste, this is Gerald Cooper, the gentleman I told you about,” I inform her as he comes to stand beside me.

“I am so sorry,” she murmurs. “So sorry…”

“Yes, well it’s a bit late for apologies,” huffs Gerald, his voice harsh enough for me to cast him a reproachful glance.

“We’re not here to blame anyone,” I tell the girl. “We just need you to tell us what happened.”

She looks as if she’s going to burst into tears at any moment, but manages to sniff them back.

“They left this morning. Early, before nine o’clock. Miss Simmons said that if anyone came here, I should tell them she was taking Niamh to London for the day.”

“And that didn’t strike you as unusual?” wonders Gerald.

Celeste nods her head several times, like a child being interviewed by the police after she and her big sister have been caught shoplifting.

“Was she talking about anyone in particular?” I ask her.

“Men were looking for her. Bad men. I saw one of them yesterday, hiding in the trees.”

Cunningham.

The bastard got his ‘result’.

If I catch up with him the only undercover operation he’ll be fit for is infiltrating a secret society consisting exclusively of quadriplegics.

I take Gerald’s arm, pulling him close and standing on my toes so I can speak quietly into his ear.

“The MoD. They wanted to flush Cathryn out, see where she runs to.”

“And their plan succeeded, except that she now has a hostage she can use against them.”

Celeste hears this, and begins wailing.

“This isn’t your fault,” I say firmly. “Cathryn’s responsible for taking Niamh, not you. Now if you want to help–“

“I need to go through any personal effects Miss Simmons may have left behind,” Gerald puts in. “Ruth, can you stay by the phone in case Kerrie rings?”

“Will do.”

“We’d also be grateful for some coffee and sandwiches,” he says to Celeste. “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m ravenous.”

“Is there an extension in the kitchen?” I ask her. “Come on, love, pull yourself together.”

“On the…on the left as you go in.”

“Okay, why don’t I fix us all something while you two have a scout around?”

Fifteen minutes later I’ve filled plates with slices of cooked ham, salami, processed Bavarian cheese and crusty bread, and set out bowls of pickles, crackers and crisps. I’m pouring out the coffee when Gerald comes through the door, boiling with anger.

“What is it?” I cry, going over to him. “What did you find?”

“That stupid girl!” he rages.

“Oh God, what’s she done now?”

“I’m talking about Niamh. Dover, it appears, was a red herring. They flew from Gatwick to Paris this afternoon, on passports Niamh — and Celeste - were complicit in faking.” He hands me a small white envelope. “Meet Mrs Rachel Holmes and her seventeen year old daughter Teresa.”

The faces in the miniature photographs I take out are recognisably those of Cathryn and Niamh, though as I feared they’ve both adopted short, boyish hairstyles.

“Oh my giddy aunt,” I gasp. “I was right…”

“Put me in a room with the three of them and I wouldn’t know who to strangle first.”

“What’ll Kerrie say?”

“It’s what she might do that worries me. Because that’s not all. From Paris they were booked on a connecting flight to Bucharest.”

I feel my legs buckle beneath me.

Bucharest.

The capital of Romania.

Of which Bucovina is a province.

“We can’t say anything,” I mumble. “She’ll go after them. I know she will.”

“Yes, and thanks to her inheritance she now has the resources to bribe her way across the Iron Curtain.”

I slump into a chair and bang my fist against my forehead.

But tell me this: where does Kerrie Latimer’s father fit in?
That’s one of the things we’ve been trying to find out.

“Gerry, did she tell you if the cheque’s cleared yet?”

“I believe the money reached her account on Thursday or Friday…”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” I wait for him to sit before going on. “I’ve a hunch the will might be a forgery. It could have been the MoD’s way of making sure Kerrie travelled to Northcroft, found the casket and brought it back to show Cathryn. But I–“

“How did they know she’d search the house?”

“Oh, I think someone planted that idea in her head before she even set off. On Saturday night I saw Dave reading the notebook. He didn’t turn a hair.”

“You’re saying he’s a government agent too?”

“He became Kerrie’s boyfriend around the same time Helen Sutton died. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. And before you say anything, how on earth was I supposed to break that to her? But to return to the will, what I couldn’t work out was why the sum involved was so big. I mean, a quarter of a million…and that was only her father’s share. A tenth of that amount would’ve been enough to get her up there.”

Gerald’s face has gone white.

“They want her to follow Cathryn. That’s what the money is for. She has to know, Ruth. As soon as she gets in touch we’ve got to tell her everything.”

“Not everything. We can’t afford to drive a wedge between her and Dave. He might be a plant, but at the moment he’s the only person she can turn to. Besides, he probably has as little idea of what this is all about as I did.” He shakes his head, but I can see that I’ve swung him round to my way of thinking. “So it’s decided, then. Come on, let’s eat.”

More lies.

But the prospect of Kerrie walking blindly into that nest of quasi-religious vipers, her ignorance compounded by my unwillingness to divulge the more unnerving aspects of my encounter with Susan Dwyer, helps me justify them.

We nibble at the food — neither of us has any real appetite, despite having had nothing since lunchtime — then I cover what’s left with kitchen foil to help it stay fresh for later.

“What are we going to do now?” I ask Gerald as I follow him through to the lounge.

“Well, we can’t leave until the morning. I think you should get Celeste to make up a bed for you. I’m happy to man the phone.”

“Thanks, but I wouldn’t sleep a wink. No, I’ll stay here.”

“Are you sure? It could be a long time before you get some proper rest. Cathryn’s mother is still in hospital, remember. She’ll need someone to pick her up when they discharge her tomorrow.”

“God, I’d forgotten about that. And then we’ll have to let her know that not only has her darling daughter done a runner with a teenage girl, she’s also about to lose her home and spend the rest of her days in a…”

Cathy was adopted in 1942. That’s all I know. Millicent’s kept it from her. I haven’t a clue why.

“What is it, Ruth?”

“You know, that might be a blessing in disguise.”

“It’s a very good disguise.”

“Cathryn isn’t Millicent’s natural daughter. She was adopted at the age of four or five. I got that from Kerrie, by the way. And listen to this: Cathryn has never been told!”

“Mrs Simmons must have her reasons…”

“Yes, and won’t it be interesting to find out what they are? In the meantime, let’s see what her room has to show us. Celeste can do the boring bit.”

Gerald shrugs his shoulders, then leads the way upstairs.

It isn’t long before we’re busy sorting through the pile of papers, photographs, keepsakes and other assorted memorabilia Celeste has helped us assemble on the desk next to the dressing table. After a while I find other matters to occupy my time, the cramps in my abdomen having issued a stern reminder that my period is in full flow. That problem addressed, I rinse my face and hands, use my index finger as an improvised toothbrush, refresh my lipstick and treat my neck to an extra splash of scent. It’s all a bit make-do-and-mend, but considering the circumstances things could have been a lot worse.

Back in Millicent’s room I pull up a chair, lifting from the heap anything that might be of relevance. If my hand collides with Gerald’s on ever more frequent occasions, it’s not my fault we’re working on such a small surface.

A breakthrough of sorts arrives when he shows me an old black-and-white photograph of Millicent and her husband standing in a suburban garden, she draped in a Japanese flag while he carries a ceremonial sword.

“Where did they get those?” I wonder.

“Wasn’t Millicent a nurse in the Far East at one point?”

“Yeah, in Singapore. Arthur was badly injured when his ship was attacked. The day after he was brought to the hospital they were evacuated.”

Gerald rubs his chin.

“This is just a guess — but I’ve a funny feeling Millicent may have been working for Force 136.”

“Which is…?”

“It was the Singapore branch of the SOE — the Special Operations Executive.”

My eyes widen.

“They co-ordinated all the resistance movements, didn’t they?”

“That’s right. But 136 was disbanded shortly before the Japanese invaded.”

“Was Romania occupied?”

“Officially no. They–“

He doesn’t finish his sentence, for at that moment a telephone begins ringing. We hurry down to the lounge and find Celeste, who has been waiting dutifully for just such an eventuality, talking quietly into the mouthpiece.

“Mrs Cooper,” she says, passing it to Gerald.

“Just popping out for a smoke,” I mouth at him.

I make my way through the dining room to the verandah, where I light my first cigarette since we drove off the ferry. My watch tells me it’s nearly half-past eleven; this time last night I was with Padraig, worried only about how long I should let him fondle my left breast. Now I’m looking across the lawn towards a belt of trees my imagination has swarming with secret agents, any one of whom might decide that the three people in the house they’re staking out know far more than is good for them.

There’s much to be said for living every day as if it were your last.

I’m almost down to the filter when Gerald appears, deep lines of concern etched across his face.

“Bad news, I’m afraid,” he says. “David has lost her.”

“Lost her? How?”

“All he was prepared to tell Rosemary was that they’d had a fight. He thinks she may have bought a ticket for the Zeebrugge ferry, so he’s going to be on the next one. Reading between the lines, so to speak, it’s quite possible that he’s slipped up and let the cat out of the bag. If he did…”

“Zeebrugge’s in Belgium, isn’t it?” He nods his head. “Then I know where she’s going. One of the girls who went to Bucovina fifteen years ago lived in Brussels at the time. The address is in the notebook, but we made copies. I’ve got one in my purse.”

Gerald lets out a loud sigh.

“I must say I don’t like the idea of Kerrie wandering around a foreign country on her own — especially when she’s in a state of emotional turmoil. And I know that she doesn’t speak French.”

“I do, though.”

“Fluently?”

“Bien couramment. Comme une autochthone.”

“Like a…?”

“Native.”

“Wait a minute, you’re not suggesting we follow them? What about your passport?”

I dig inside my bag and wave the document in front of him.

“Never leave home without it.”

His eyes are troubled. Events are moving too quickly; one by one, the certainties of his life are being swept away.

“We’ll talk about this in the morning,” he says.

“I think we need to come to a decision now,” I argue as he steers me back inside. “You say you care for her. I need to make amends for, well, you know…”

“When I asked about your passport I was referring to the fact that you’ve been involved in this case for a long time. The authorities are certain to be on the look-out for you — and not just at Dover, I’ll be bound.”

“We have to try, Gerry. At least I have to.” I meet and hold his gaze. “And I want you with me.”

“I don’t know, Ruth…”

I turn from him, arms folded across my stomach. Within moments his hands have come to rest on my shoulders; I feel my body lean back automatically at his touch, and although the sensation is akin to falling off a wall with my eyes shut and not an inkling as to how far it might be to the ground, my mind doesn’t protest.

Now if I move my head slowly around…

But Gerald isn’t cut from the same cloth as Cunningham. If his smile proves he’s appreciated the closeness we’ve just shared, he isn’t about to take advantage of it.

“In the morning,” he repeats, and this time his tone leaves no room for dissent.

We head for the lounge and find that Celeste has laid out sheets, blankets and a thick counterpane on the sofa. She’s also placed little footstools in front of it. I take off my jacket and shoes, then sit down and pull the bedding over my skirt.

“I’ll be chivalrous and bag the armchair,” offers Gerald.

“Don’t be silly. The heating went off more than an hour ago. You’ll freeze.”

“I’ve suffered far worse privations, I can assure you.”

“I’d rather you didn’t suffer any at all on my account. Now let’s do the sensible thing and keep each other warm.”

I raise the edge of the quilt, inviting him to settle beside me. He rolls his eyes; he’s licked and he knows it.

“But we won’t turn the light off,” he says.

“No, we’d better not.”

He takes his place on the sofa. I wait for him to cuddle me, but he’s much too respectful so after a few moments I link arms with him and let my head sink into the cosy hollow where his shoulder meets his chest. All I can do after that is relax to the rhythm of his breathing as the grandfather clock in the corner of the room ticks relentlessly towards daybreak and the telephone maintains its stubborn silence.

I wake to the sound of Gerald yawning. He stands up, steals out of the room in his stockinged feet and closes the door behind him. I rub my eyes, squinting in the bright sunshine streaming in from the east-facing window.

Another morning.

Another chapter in a tale H P Lovecraft would have dismissed as too fanciful.

While I’m alone I reach back to unhook my bra. I may have become so used to wearing them that I feel undressed without one, but they weren’t made to be slept in.

After I’ve put on my shoes and run a comb through my hair I sit on the edge of the sofa and wait for Gerald to return. When he does, I can tell immediately that he’s been awake all night.

“I take it she didn’t ring,” I say as I haul myself to my feet.

“No, and Rosemary hasn’t heard from her either. I called just before I went to the bathroom.”

“Speaking of which, I’d better use the shower. I must stink.”

When I come back he’s fast asleep. I decide to go out and stretch my legs before I make myself coffee; the sun isn’t yet high enough to counter the cold northerly breeze that’s sprung up during the night, and as I can’t be bothered to fetch my jacket I hug my arms until I’ve reached the shelter of the woods…

…where I nearly go flying as I catch my instep on the loose cable some idiot has thrown over the wall.

Men were looking for her. Bad men. I saw one of them yesterday, hiding in the trees.

Or maybe it’s attached to something.

A telephone wire, for example.

I don’t have to follow the cable very far before my theory is confirmed. The only question is, where does the other end lead?

Hang on, didn’t we pass a set of road works last night as we drove up the hill? And wasn’t there one of those huts the men use in wet weather, even though it hasn’t been raining?

I march straight for the main road, indignation beating back the urge to run and wake Gerald. But my pace slows when I notice that the car parked a few yards from the front entrance is a light blue Austin Allegro.

And I come to a complete stop as I realise that the dark-haired woman at the wheel isn’t its only occupant.

Cunningham steps out, spits a piece of chewing gum onto the pavement and spends a good half a minute looking me up and down. I feel my cheeks begin to colour at the memory of his tongue inside my mouth; they cool when I recall the way he tossed me aside with no more consideration than he’d show towards an old dog end.

“Get in,” he orders me. “Your boss would like a heart-to-heart.”

I have no choice but to do as he says.

“Hair looks nice,” he smirks as I open the car door. “Poof.”

“Sod off before I knee you in the bollocks.”

“Very ladylike.”

One of these days I’ll give you a blow job, darling. Then we’ll discover if I’ve literally bitten off more than I can chew.

I didn’t say any of that out loud, did I?

No, he’d have come back with something. That type always do.

Suki Tatsukichi — I can’t bring myself to think of her as Ruth, so fully do I identify with that name — makes a single movement with her eyes and Cunningham is sent packing.

“Just us girls, eh?” I chuckle, settling into the seat and pulling the door shut.

“You know why I’m here, don’t you?”

“To offer me a pay rise? Don’t bother. Ten per cent of nothing is…well, you can do the arithmetic yourself.”

“If you check your bank account you’ll find you’ve been more than adequately rewarded for your services.”

“Really? What’s the going rate for aiding and abetting a kidnapping?”

“That was unforeseen. We had no idea she would stoop so low.”

“Niamh has a crush on Cathryn. She’ll have jumped at the chance to go on a big adventure with her mum’s best friend. I thought the agent you placed with the family would have realised that and had the sense to keep the girl away from her. I only hope he does a better job of looking after Kerrie because I’ll tell you this much, she isn’t coming back without her daughter.”

Suki’s brows lift, despite her clear reluctance to acknowledge my deductive skills.

“The reason I came to see you, Ruth, is to inform you that we’re taking you off this case with immediate effect.”

“Is that right?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I get it. You’re going to whisk me back to the north-east before I can talk to Mrs Simmons and discover who Cathryn really is — and how she’s connected with what happened in Bucovina fifteen years ago.”

“That needn’t concern you. We have the situation in hand.”

“Course you do. I’d be a fool to think otherwise, wouldn’t I?”

The look she throws at me is typically acerbic, yet there’s something else lurking behind those almond-shaped eyes — an emotion I can’t identify.

“How’s your adjustment coming along?” she asks.

“You really want to know?”

“I have to keep track of your progress. It’s part of my job.”

I’m gripped by an urge to berate her for keeping so much from me, for allowing me to spend months believing I still had a chance of returning to my original body. It passes.

“Okay, I suppose.”

“As vague as ever,” she sighs.

“It’s all you’re getting.”

Sliding a hand inside her jacket, she produces two plain brown envelopes and passes me the slimmer of the pair.

“A rail warrant, First Class, valid between Ryde Esplanade and Northcroft-on-Heugh.”

“So I’m heading back to the Gladstone? How jolly.”

“Trisha Hodgson and her brother-in-law have been digging. We’d prefer them to desist.”

“Oh, I’m being told what the mission is this time? Wonders will never cease!”

“Don’t be flippant. Trisha already knows more than she should.”

“Like the fact that Carol Vasey isn’t who everyone thinks she is? That’s right, I found out what really went on the night Bob Hodgson died. Hurts to say this, but I actually ended up feeling sorry for you. Doesn’t stop me hating you for not coming clean, though. What was the matter, didn’t you reckon I could handle the truth?”

If my words have any effect on her, she doesn’t show it.

“This contains an agreement annulling your marriage to Timothy Hansford-Jones on the grounds of non-consummation,” she says, holding out the other envelope. “All it needs is your signature. I can have it pushed through by the end of the week.”

I give her a long, searching stare.

“You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?” I chuckle. “Big favour you’re asking. Wearing a wedding ring saves me from an awful lot of unwanted admirers.”

“Perhaps it does. But it’s a burden to you all the same.”

She’s got me there. Of all the baggage weighing me down, the piece tying me to a husband I’ve never met has the potential to be the most restrictive.

But that isn’t what persuades me to accede to her request. Knowing that she’s lost fifteen years of her life, what right have I to deny her the chance to enjoy the time she has left?

“Okay, all done.” I give her back the signed annulment and begin twisting off her ring. “Anything else before I go?”

“We’ll send a courier at the weekend to pick up Kerrie Latimer’s car and the belongings she left at the hotel.”

“Nice way of making sure I toe the line.”

She reaches across to open the door.

“Goodbye, Ruth.”

I climb from the car and watch it disappear in the direction of the town centre. Walking back to St John’s House, I feel drained and discontented. This adventure has given me a sense of purpose, one that’s just been wrenched from my hands. It irks me that I can play no further part in helping Kerrie retrieve her daughter, that I’ll have to concoct a story to explain why I’ve suddenly decided to pack up and go home.

And all because Suki Tatsukichi says so.

But after I’ve stepped into the lounge, taken my place on the sofa beside Gerald, draped my arm around his shoulder and eased his head onto my bosom, my mood improves. Trisha needs me, and that will always count for something.

It isn’t long before Gerald stirs from slumber. I wait for him to come fully awake, then deliver the news that I’ll be leaving.

I don’t say why. I’ve told enough lies.