Rachaela walked along Beaumont Street. The garish front of the Pizza Eater blossomed. Should she go in for a drink? No, they would not serve only a drirtk, she should recall that. Where then? Somewhere to halt, to see what he would do.

It was a coincidence. He was some stray who had reminded her of the Scarabae agent. That was all.

The launderette was open, lit dead-white and empty.

Rachaela pushed open the door and went in.

She sat down on one of the seats, and waited for the man in the woollen hat to come up, see her, and check.

A woman emerged from the insides of the launderette.

‘Do you need any help?’

‘I’m just waiting for a friend.’

The woman looked at her suspiciously.

‘Not doing any washing then?’

‘No.’

‘Well I suppose you know what you’re doing.’

She began to fiddle with some clothes from an open machine, dropping pairs of briefs and socks on to the floor.

The man appeared. He went by the window, without a glance, and moved on into the night.

The light from the launderette had shone upon him like an arc lamp. He was the man she had seen all those years before. She was sure of it. Sure.

Rachaela got up.

‘Off now then?’ chirped the woman, dropping another sock.

Rachaela went out into the shiny black, the confusion of slanting lit rain, streetlights, headlights.

Where was he? He had vanished.

She had imagined the likeness. He was just some man. The Scarabae had been preying on her mind, as in patches they always did, and so she had conjured up the memory to fit a stranger.

For they could not have gone on haunting her. They could not still want her now.

She trod cautiously along the street.

Knots of people scurried in the snowy rain.

Rachaela turned left and walked more briskly. She was borne away from the lights, and on the stretch of darker pavement, she stopped and looked all round. But no one was there save for a woman with an umbrella, a cyclist going wearily along by the kerb. Overhead a red window concealed some ordinary pleasure or wretchedness. She too began to hurry home.

When she opened the door the flat was in darkness, but sometimes Ruth, alone, would sit in the dark.

Rachaela crossed to one of the windows. It was open, the curtain wet and blowing.

Rachaela shut the window.

She stood in the darkness, gazing out at the street.

Traffic went by now and then. A man passed, but not the man she had seen.

No one, so far as she could tell, hugged the doorways, folded into the shadows. No one was there, watching, ready.

She turned and switched on a lamp.

A sort of sleepy stirring came from behind Ruth’s screen.

‘Hallo, Ruth.’

Ruth came out.

Rachaela was startled; wholly, disconcertingly unnerved.