She had been so frightened. It had taken all her strength to go to the man who thought children were special. Why were they special? They were unformed dough, unfinished things, due to be warped into the general useless and dangerous mass of human adults.

Rachaela touched her stomach and took her hand quickly away. It was in there. A growth, busily feeding on her, swelling second by second.

It would take so much courage to find another doctor, and she would surely have to go to a hospital to do so. She feared hospitals. She distrusted the uniform of the white coat. And then she might meet another one like the one today.

Could she do something herself?

She had tried all the sane home remedies she had ever heard of to dislodge it. Gin and hot baths, exercises. She could not bring herself to fall down the house stairs. The commotion, and people running out, a broken leg.

She was afraid, too, of the abortion. To have the thing scraped or vacuumed out of her womb, the very thought of it last night had sent her to the bathroom, heaving over the modern white lavatory.

But she must find someone. Someone kind who would put her first.

As she had told herself she must not, she saw the Scarabae reaching out, their agents in the surgery, the doctor listening, nodding.

This was not a plot. It was simple bad luck.

The tradition of the family. Continuance.

No wonder he had left her. He had seen to her as he had seen to her mother. He had been more certain with Rachaela.

She sat down in her chair and threw its new blue cushion to the carpet.

How pretty the flat was. She could live here, surely, at peace, alone.

And she would need to work. There was the cafeteria in Lyle and Robbins. Old-fashioned, not too demanding, and no drunks. Then again the Pizza Eater on Beaumont Street was a better bet for tips. No bookshops. Computerized tills. These things could be sorted out and surmounted.

But not this.

She lay back in the chair.

She was so tired.

The clear windows showed the roofs of London, the redundant chimneys and the crop of TV aerials, the spring sky. An aeroplane. She recalled no aeroplanes flying over the heath. Out of time and place, that spot.

Perhaps something will happen. Anna had said that.

She had meant the pregnancy.

Was it wrong to kill it?

It was a monster.

In the blustery dark descending the well-lit centre of the house, Rachaela found a woman had stepped out from a doorway, a neighbour from the floor below.

‘Oh, Miss Day. I picked this up by mistake. I’m afraid I think it’s only junk mail, but it’s addressed to you.’

Rachaela took the glossy envelope.

‘Thank you.’

‘You can never tell these days. It might be something you want.’