‘But I’ve brought you something.’

Rachaela stayed still. Camillo blocked off the door from her, sitting cross-legged like a tailor. Under the black cross on the window.

‘That’s very kind of you.’

‘Yes. The boy wouldn’t help you, would he? Adamus. You and he, the same. Dark horses.’ Camillo got up. ‘It should have been you, not that child.’

‘Should it?’

‘I tried to pretend once I was like Adamus is. I slit her neck with a table knife. But the gene didn’t come out in me.’

‘I’m not a vampire,’ Rachaela said. ‘None of you is. Not even Adamus. It’s something he does. A sickness. And Ruth caught the sickness.’

‘Nasty,’ Camillo said. ‘Take her away. She’ll cause trouble, up in the attic. The attic was mine. But she hasn’t got the rocking-horse.’

‘I want to take her away,’ said Rachaela.

‘Good. Then here’s the key.’

He held out something to her that shone dully in the window glare bisected by the black-paint cross.

‘The key,’ she said, ‘the key to the attic?’

‘One of them. It works.’

Rachaela reached out slowly and took the key.

‘Thank you, Camillo.’

Take her away,’ he said.

Twill.’

Camillo went down the passage. He said, ‘Don’t suppose it will do any good.’

Rachaela’s hand clasped convulsively on the key.

Steady now. It would take all her care.

❖

Rachaela entered the dining room and no one was there, no one had come to dine but herself.

All afternoon she had seen no Scarabae. They had slipped into compartments of the house, perhaps hiding themselves.

Cheta served Rachaela. It was lamb cutlets, from the supermarket, carrots, peas and new potatoes.

Rachaela ate hungrily. She would need the food. Michael had not appeared and she had asked Cheta for a glass of wine.

After the lamb there was an apricot jelly, perhaps the remains of yesterday’s meal.

Cheta served her tea in the drawing room.

It was strange, not to see Anna sitting there, or her embroidery. Her death had not sunk in. Once before she had been absent.

Rachaela stayed Cheta as she was leaving the room. ‘Has Ruth been fed?’

‘Oh, yes, Miss Rachaela. Carlo took up Miss Ruth’s tray an hour ago.’

They would not clear the tray until the morning, when breakfast was taken to the voracious incarcerated child.

Rachaela hoped Ruth had been able, with her battered face, to eat her dinner. She too would need it.

Rachaela was leisurely over her tea. She left the room when her watch told her it was almost ten-thirty.

She went up to her bedroom. She waited another half hour, hearing no Scarabae, having seen none beyond Cheta.

At five past eleven she went out, and made her way up to the attic.

The key turned easily in the lock.