The lightning came again then, and the thunder on its wings. Some draught or vibration snuffed the candle as in the most clichéd drama of fiction.

And in the pitch dark, she heard the chair whisper, the door murmur to itself, opened. Closing.

Chapter Four

They were dressed just as she had foreseen, in long coats and boots, scarves about their necks, gloves on their hands. He wore a battered old hat and she a head-square unsuitably brightly coloured. Both wore sunglasses with thick rims. Clad for the Swiss Alps. They poised in attitudes of wonderment.

Rachaela had cornered them in their kitchen, alerted by Anna the previous evening: ‘Tomorrow Cheta and Carlo will be going to the cottages. Do you have your list? They will leave early.’

Rather than hand the list to Cheta, Rachaela presented herself in person at eight o’clock in the kitchen, whose whereabouts she had located by watching them head along a narrow passage which led from the hall.

Carlo she had glimpsed in the garden meanwhile, tugging at the winter weeds. The garden was prolific and unruly, regardless of the time of year. He was a big, muscular old man, like a gypsy—but, too, like all the rest of them. The same face, the fixed and dusty eyes of Michael, Cheta and Maria.

‘You’re going to the village. I’ll come with you,’ said Rachaela.

‘It’s a long walk, Miss Rachaela.’

‘Yes I know. Nine miles, or ten.’

Cheta glanced at Carlo. How could they refuse her if she insisted.

For a week she had been training her body, walking long distances each day beside the cliffs, across the heath. She had walked as far as the farther hills, and back, a trek which her watch, now rewound, and set according to her presumed waking time of seven-thirty, informed her had taken three hours. She could cope with Cheta and Carlo’s long walk.

The kitchen was large, full of sinks, shelves and pans, a black range which was perhaps not used, for to one side there lurked an elderly gas cooker. Gas had come to the house and stayed, but only here and in the Ascots of the bathrooms.

The kitchen floor was stone and the wooden table scrubbed. There were mouse-holes clearly visible. She imagined the forays of the mice by night and the night cat leaping on them. A pantry opened out of the kitchen. The eldritch Scarabae who had not dined would come to raid it in the dark, like the mice. She pictured Uncle Camillo stuffing himself with cold seagull. There were jars of pickled fish and preserves, dark brown and mauve. On the table lay two purple-green cabbages and a great knife. The opaque white windows contained leaves of cabbage-coloured glass, and oil lamps waited ready to light the preparation of food. A weird subaqueous kitchen.

And here the two venturers stood hesitating in their Alpine garments and black goggles.