“Peter! Peter!” she called. “ It’s Sally. I’m here. Where are you?”

She tried to keep the panic from her voice, but Barnaby began to whimper.

She followed the boardwalk further into the marsh. The noise of the pushchair wheels on wood was solid, reassuring. She tried to shake away her panic. She was quite safe. She was not even lost. All she had to do was to turn round and follow the walk back to the Rushy road. She would try to find the other hide. If the boardwalk came to an end, she would turn back and return to Rushy. Perhaps Peter had decided that it was too foggy to bring her out. She would just check the other hide and then she would go back. But when she stopped walking, when there was no sound of the pushchair wheels rattling on the wooden planks, her panic returned. In the silence she heard strange noises. She peered into the fog and saw strange shapes.

It was in one of those moments of silent panic that she heard the footsteps on the boardwalk behind her. She bent over the pushchair as the tension left her, in a thankful collapse.

“Peter!” the tears of relief rolled down her cheeks. “ I thought you weren’t coming. I’ve been so scared.”

There was no reply.

“Peter, can’t you hear me?”

The voice that answered seemed closer than the footsteps. It spoke, with quiet hatred, a list of obscenities. That such words could be spoken with such control made the speaker inhuman, quite unnatural. Sally screamed and the voice laughed.

Then it was just like her nightmare. As she ran along the walk, the sodden reeds tangled around the pushchair’s wheels and caught at her legs. She was wearing jeans and as they got wet they clung to her legs and restricted her movement. She could hear the footsteps behind her come closer and closer. The path was becoming narrower and less firm underfoot. She knew that the pursuer would catch up with her. Then the chair wheel caught in a rut, it skewed off the path and tipped over. Barnaby was crying, quietly, as if he were frightened to make too much noise. As in her dreams, she bent down to take him into her arms to comfort him and to wait for the person who was following her.

The murderer must have reached her as she bent over the pushchair. She felt something tight about her neck and as she gasped for breath the picture of Barnaby’s face, white and crumpled with distress, turned for a moment into Tom’s face.

Just before she fainted she heard a woman’s voice.

“Adam,” Molly shouted. “Adam, don’t listen to those voices. Don’t listen to them. Listen to me.”

Adam had a leather strap around Sally’s neck. Barnaby was crying, but Sally was still and quiet. The boy turned and saw Molly, and dropped his hands from Sally’s neck. George and Peter arrived then, but neither Molly nor Adam saw them. While George skillfully cared for Sally, and Peter awkwardly comforted the baby, Adam held out his hand to Molly as if he were drowning. She took it and held it tight while he cried.