It would be simple just to doze and walk and idle the time away here, as if this were all that was asked of her. But she knew it was not. Something was expected. It must be. She was like the sacrificial lamb, kept and fattened against the day of its ritual death. Was it so far-fetched to think the purpose of the Scarabae any different? It was easy to credit them with it, the keeping of her, her ritual slaughter at some preordained phase of the moon. Dragging her screaming at midnight across the heath, strong Carlo and Cheta, their grip merciless; Sylvian with the huge knife from the cabbages held daintily as the ebony ruler. One more word to erase: Rachaela.

The room faded. She was standing at a crossroads on the heath, naked but for her blowing hair. She waited, and no one came but the blue van and the fat man, who pulled up and called cheerily, ‘Want a lift? Hop in.’

Stephan did not come to ‘dine’, only Anna came, in her long charcoal frock, her embroidery in one hand.

Michael served her her thimble of garnet and Rachaela her glass of white wine.

It was another rabbit-pie. Rachaela recalled the rabbits she had seen feeding on the heath. There were countless numbers of them, a larder to the Scarabae. Probably it was Carlo who took them. Yet she had never heard the crack of a gun.

They sat before the drawing-room fire.

On the walls were mirrors obscura, paintings upon other paintings, drawn curtains behind which jostled stained glass images. The figures on the chessboard were in disarray, someone had lost their temper at them; the queen lay on her face. The candles burned and the yellow lamps. Was it cosy by the fire or macabre?

‘Anna, I really must talk to you. I mean, I should like answers.’

‘Whatever I can do, Rachaela.’ Anna was, as always, gracious.

‘I went to the village with Cheta and Carlo.’

‘You’re very brave. But I can see the walk tired you.’

The village looked quite dead. And the public telephone was vandalized.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Anna, embroidering placidly.

‘Suppose,’ said Rachaela, ‘that you needed the phone. Is it sensible not to have one?’

‘All that bother of having a telephone installed,’ said Anna. ‘I’m afraid we’re set in our ways. We hate intrusion.’

‘But I have intruded.’

‘You? Rachaela, you’re one of our own.’

‘Suppose,’ Rachaela tried again, ‘one of you fell ill.’

‘We are never ill,’ said Anna. ‘Only old.’

‘Then that alone—’

‘No, Rachaela. The case would never arise. We care for ourselves.’

‘And me,’ said Rachaela, ‘if I wanted to phone anyone.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Anna. But she looked up. Her sharp eyes said, You are alone. You have no one.

Rachaela said, ‘It disconcerts me. The way you live here. And if I stay, the way I must live with you.’