He wished they would go to bed too. That they hadn’t he could tell by the light, the rectangular outline of dazzlement that showed round the frame of his bedroom door. And he could hear them talking, not the words but the buzz of conversation. These late-Victorian houses were atrociously built, you could hear every sound. The rain drumming on the roof sounded as if it were pounding on cardboard rather than on slates. He didn’t think there was much prospect of sleep. How could he sleep with the noise and all that on his mind, the worry of getting the car moved, of finding some way of getting to the office? And it made him feel very uneasy, their staying up like that, particularly as she had said, ‘If you’ll go into the bathroom first, Duncan, we’ll follow you.’ Follow him! That must have been all of half an hour ago. He pressed the switch of his bedlamp and saw that it was eleven thirty. Time they were in bed if she had to get to her school in the morning and he to his accountancy course.

Once more in the dark, but for that gold-edged rectangle, he considered the car lights question again. He was certain he had turned them out. Of course it was hard to be certain of anything when you were as upset as he. The pressure they had put on him had been simply horrible, and the worst moments those when he had been alone with Hugo while that woman was fishing out of her oven the ancient pullet she’d dished up to him. Really, she’d been a hell of a time getting that main course when you considered what it had amounted to. Could she . . .? Only a madwoman would do such a thing, and what possible motive could she have had? But if you lived in a remote place and you wanted someone to stay in your house overnight, if you wanted to keep them there, how better than to immobilize their car? He shivered, even while he told himself such fancies were absurd.

At any rate, they were coming up now. Every board in the house creaked and the stairs played a tune like a broken old violin. He heard Hugo mumble something – the man had drunk far too much brandy – and then she said, ‘Leave all the rest to me.’

Another shiver, that hadn’t very much to do with the cold, ran through him. He couldn’t think why he had shivered. Surely that was quite a natural thing for a woman to say on going to bed? She only meant, You go to bed and I’ll lock up and turn off the lights. And yet it was a phrase that was familiar to him in quite another context. Turning on his side away from the light and into fresh caverns of icy sheet, he tried to think where he had heard it. A quotation? Yes – it came from Macbeth. Lady Macbeth said it when she and her husband were plotting the old king’s murder. And what was the old king’s name? Douglas? Donal?