‘I’ll go,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and I won’t see you again. I’ll put the chair against my door. If you get in I’ll fight you. I’ll kill you.’

‘I won’t come into your room. Poor Rachaela,’ he said, ‘where else do you have to hide?’

She turned and walked over the room with carefully placed steps, and down the stair. Outside the door the horrible passageway seemed filled by some miasma. She walked on steadily, back into the light of the Salome window. That was her flight.

An old figurehead had been washed up on the beach.

It was a merman, with green and orange paint still stuck to it. Its tuna-coloured torso ended in a post of tail. It carried a trident, bent and buckled out of shape.

Camillo would like the figurehead, she thought. It leaned against the cliff, waiting for him.

She sat in the cove, watching the sea. The sea had no answers, even its flotsam was a sort of jeer.

What she should do now was to pack her cases and walk to the village, find a house with a phone. Then a hired car would come to take her somewhere. But where? And more practically, how could she carry the heavy bags so far? She would have to jettison everything in order to escape.

Doubtless, he would now leave her alone. If she did not go to him, invited nothing. It was her fault. Not like the rape, which had been inflicted on her. She had encouraged this man, not knowing what she did. That must be it.

Another inch, another minute, and she would have dropped over the brink.

She wanted to get away.

Ironically Cheta, bringing her breakfast, had told Rachaela that in a day or so Carlo and she would be making the trek to meet the van.

She could not persuade Carlo and Cheta to carry her cases. They too were in on the peculiar plot to keep her here. They could not make a fuss, but they would evade helping her. She was the family’s.

Last night how cream-fed Anna had been. Stephan had executed several moves against himself on the chessboard. Anna especially represented the Scarabae. Her smile of approval was the beneficence of the tribe.

They’re playing with both of us. You’d better understand. So he had said to her. Was she to think him also caught up, helpless in their net?

The sea charged the cliffs and shattered.

Rachaela rose, and made her way back up the precarious stairway. What would happen if she slipped? An end to their schemes of familial continuance.

She reached the top.

A curlew cried over the heath. She could not see it.

She returned into the house by way of the conservatory. Carlo was there, bending to a tub of mauve flowers, muffled.

No Scarabae in the dining or drawing rooms. A clock striking somewhere, thirteen times.