Finally she undressed and put on one of the pair of nightdresses she saved for emergencies; normally she slept naked. But here she must be protected by an extra flimsy film of man-made silk.

The nightdress was black. She surveyed herself among the marsh of lilies, the sunburst, in the mirror. She had noticed two or three mirrors in the rooms below, each set with coloured glass, ornamented, obliterated. As if seeing oneself must be kept to a minimum.

An empty bookcase stood against the wall. She had already, to ease her nerves, unpacked and peopled it with books. She looked at them. They were hers, her own. How slight her possessions in the house of the Scarabae. How slight she herself against the rooms and corridors, the doors and annexes and inner chambers of this dense-built thing.

Twenty-one, the ancient beetles crept and slipped about their shadowy pursuits.

But she stood alone, compressed by architecture and unusual shapes.

Rachaela got into the white, white sheets and sat up on the clean white pillows, seeing the room framed now in bottle-green velvet.

The fire burned low.

Far away through the house she heard soft groanings of the wood, the breathing of its worn and living heart. The winter night was motionless beyond the window with the tree. The sea was faint.

Rachaela detected old footsteps brushing down her corridor. Then, presently, a woman’s round heels, slow and measured, not stopping.

The galloper had not come back.

How should she sleep?

She lay on her pillows, her body throbbing with tiredness. To sleep you must trust, let go. In this cradle she might lie awake a score of nights.

Rachaela heard a clock chiming walls and rooms away.

She had seen several clocks, none of which told the same time as another.

I can’t even read. She was afraid to take her eyes off the bedroom, its fireplace, its locked door.

Watch then. Watch all night.

Eventually sleep would be irresistible.

She thought of her flat. It was not hers. Had never existed.

The cat would have liked this house. She would have prowled, scratching lightly at the doors to be let in or out. She would have slept, curled there on the indigo coverlet.

Rachaela saw the cat stalking the death of the firelight.

No, she had dreamed for an instant. Going to sleep then after all.

She was safe. They were insane, but so was she to have come here.

‘Have nothing to do with them,’ said Rachaela’s mother, stark in a misremembered room of the past.

‘No, Mummy,’ said Rachaela.

She closed her eyes and beheld a tall male figure, faceless, black of hair, suspended between floor and ceiling. Rachaela slept.

Chapter Three

An incredible blitz of colour.

The woman in the bed opened her eyes and found herself drowned alive.

It was the window of stained glass, the light of day behind it now, casting down its panes.