‘No, no, Carlo,’ said Miriam, ‘put the hands over his body. It will be easier later.’

Carlo obeyed this odd, sinister injunction.

Only Anna and Stephan, and Camillo, had not come.

The crowd gathered round the bed.

They looked hard at Sylvian, as if to be sure after all.

It was certainly a dead face, the whites of the eyes just showing, and the mouth agape. Almost like an old man asleep, but not breathing. Perhaps they had tested for the beat of the heart, or not needed to. Was this how they all anticipated their ancient ends? After so many hundred years, between one step and another, a clotting of the breath, great silence and utter darkness, this undignified dignity left behind.

‘I’ll close Sylvian’s eyes,’ said Alice.

She went forward and did so briskly. She tried to shut his mouth too, but obstinately it dropped open again.

‘Better leave it,’ said Jack.

Alice left it, stepped away.

One by one, two by two, the Scarabae began to retreat, to go out of the room.

Rachaela watched this egress, puzzled and at a loss.

They were all gone before she could think of what to say to them.

She was alone with dead Sylvian, and outside the corridor was empty.

She caught up with Cheta on the landing.

‘Cheta, what will happen now?’

‘Happen, Miss Rachaela?’

‘About Sylvian, obviously.’

‘Miss Anna and Mr Stephan will see to it.’

Cheta moved off and went down the stairs.

There was so much to be done. A death certificate, a burial to be arranged—Rachaela recalled the several duties of the living at a death.

The remote house would be breached, disturbed. She visualized them all in some rustic graveyard, twenty-one black crows about the grave. It did not seem conceivable.

Rachaela went to her room, and switched on her radio. The music pushed out of it to fill the space, but the music did not help and the window intruded.

Their lack of fear was uncanny. This symbol of cessation: They did not seem to care. She was offended at seeing her own reaction to her mother’s death—her disinterest, perhaps even her relief—acted out by the Scarabae, who should have wailed and trembled.

‘Are you there, Camillo?’

The attic window was blue with dusk, a blind of stained air. The rocking-horse rose like a double hill against the dying light. The bottles winked.

The rocking-chair was empty.

She saw the form of Camillo seated on a cushion on the floor, working upon something.

‘Come to tell me, have you?’ he said. ‘I know.’

One of the others had climbed up and given him the news.

‘Sylvian,’ she said.

‘Despoiler of books.’

There was no sign of compassion or fright, either, in Camillo. She had not expected them. She had expected something.

‘None of you feel anything,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing special. I thought you were all part of a whole.’