Ruth writhing, kicking and screaming on the black piano, Adamus on top of her, his mouth at her throat, a tiny trickle of scarlet.

‘I married Adam. Nothing happened to me.’

‘You’re not like us. Your mother was a stranger.’

‘Ruth, I need time with you. I want you to come back to London with me.’

‘No thank you,’ Ruth said, ‘Mummy.’

Rachaela saw Ruth alter inside her flesh. She became concentrated, dangerous, as Rachaela had seen her once before. There was a light to the eyes, the teeth looked sharp and the fingernails long. Try to touch now, and this creature would bite and scratch. It would punch into a breast as it had when a baby, and wriggle away and get free. There was a demon in Ruth. The Scarabae demon, but given a fresh and hybrid life.

A blot of darkness on the sunlight made Rachaela turn her head.

Carlo had come out of the house and was standing, clear of the trees, without any pretence, watching them.

He wore his outdoor things, his hat and scarf and sunglasses, in the broiling heat.

Ruth turned too and jumped up.

There’s Carlo. I’m going to make an apple-pie with Maria.’

She ran towards the house, lifting up her long skirt.

She passed Carlo, who continued a moment to stare down at Rachaela on the grass, before himself turning away and back into the pines.

There was nothing else to do. She must stay. She must be their witness. That way there might be a chance. She must stay.

He was no threat to her now.

And she would see him again.

In parting them, she would have dealings with him. The only dealings she might have.

Anna turned the key in the door of the locked room. Unice held up the lamp.

‘It will be very dark.’

‘We must be careful.’

The old women rustled like crisp paper.

They were all there, the women but not the men. Rachaela stood behind them all, in her place as witness.

Ruth was beside Anna.

The lamp slid into the room and lit it crazily. It was a cave, without windows, full of stripes and bulbs of redness.

Miriam and Teresa slipped ahead into the dark and there came the noise of struck matches, little spurts of flame.

A row of candles had been ignited along the walls.

It was a neglected room. A faded magenta wallpaper appeared to be in the design of pairs of bats hanging upside down—like the graphics of Escher, other shapes seemed formed by the pale-yellow interstices. Nothing was certain. Beams poked forth in the ceiling.

The room was full of red dresses. They stood on dummies down the length and across the breadth of it.

The reds were of every depth and shade, soft and dark, coarse and transparent, like fruits, some bruised and others unripe, some left too long in the sun.

These dresses had never seen the sun.