For all his seeming desire to pack the Wilsons off to bed, Mere­dith showed a strange reluctance to leave them. Paul snapped open the case and froze. Scattered liberally over the clothes folded inside was a multicoloured snowstorm of confetti. Damn Tim, he thought. He must have doctored the case while we were changing. It was obvious from Meredith’s face and that of Ann Parish that they had seen the evidence. Dismay and sympathy were their predominant reactions. Meredith sighed.

‘My dear Mr and Mrs Wilson. What rotten luck to spend your wedding-night in a cold, chilly snowbound dump like this.’ He raised both hands. ‘Look. My advice, for what it’s worth, is to get a good night’s sleep, drive off in the morning to your cottage and forget you ever were here.’ He turned to the woman. ‘Come on, Ann. Let’s wish our guests as good a night as possible in the circumstances and take ourselves off.’

When the door closed, Paul and Carol stood facing each other. The girl essayed a smile.

‘I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’

He crossed to her and put his arms round her.

‘Look, darling, I don’t quite know how to put this. And for heaven’s sake don’t get me wrong. But perhaps we should take Meredith’s advice.’

She looked up at him.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I mean, we’re tired – this room is like an icebox – the whole place is so dreadfully off-putting – perhaps we should just try to get some sleep and get away from here in the morning.’ He glanced anxiously at her. ‘I mean, I’m not – it’s not as if I don’t want – ’

She smiled, her forefinger across his lips.

‘I do love you, Paul. I know exactly what you mean. Let’s consider our honeymoon to begin tomorrow.’

They unpacked only what was strictly necessary from their cases. Paul made a first reconnoitre from the room to the bathroom. When he returned he gave Carol directions and she left.

Never in my wildest dreams did I expect it to be like this, he thought later as they lay under the blankets, old-fashioned stone hot-water bottles at their feet, the one dimmed oil-lamp Carol had unashamedly insisted on casting a pale circle of illumination on the high, plastered ceiling. She lay in his arms, turned towards him, her eyes open. To undress on one’s wedding-night in a sexless unheeding haste, to scramble into bed pursued not by desire but by the frigidity of the room, to lie in bed obsessed with uneasy speculations concerning the purpose of the occupants now presumably making ready for their own retiral to sleep was quite staggeringly improbable.

Gradually their chilled bodies thawed and warmth returned.

Carol murmured, her breath faint against his face: ‘There’s something very, very strange about these people.’

‘Perhaps.’