‘You were a bit short with them, weren’t you?’

‘I just want to get out of here.’

‘Are you feeling all right?’ He saw concern on her face.

‘Yes, of course.’ He laughed, swung the case he had snapped shut to the floor. ‘I just didn’t sleep well.’

She said unthinkingly: ‘Never mind, you can get off to bed early tonight.’ She caught the expression in his eyes, and broke off. Delightedly he saw her colour heighten, her eyes sparkle before her long dark lashes swept down in confusion.

Downstairs they found Meredith and Joyce Mair talking in the hall. Meredith also looked as if he had slept badly. Joyce Mair wore her red ski-outfit again. Outside, the air seemed just above freezing-point. Ann Parish stood talking to the four men who had completely cleared away the snow from around the van, though the side facing the Wilsons was still covered with an opaque white surface of wind-impacted snow.

Captain Pollard strode across to them.

‘I hope you don’t mind, but we would really feel a bit easier if we provided an escort for you to your cottage. You know, made sure you got there safely and didn’t end up in a drift, miles from anywhere.’

While he went through the motions of protesting and apologizing for the trouble he and Carol were causing them, Paul knew he had to accept the offer. He knew it would have been stupid not to. In truth he felt that the road they had traced on the map the previous night could well provide them with some nasty surprises. And yet he could not help wondering if any motive other than concern for their welfare lay behind the offer. Did they want to make sure they got off the premises, that there was a cottage they were going straight to, that there was no telephone or, if there was, that it could be put out of action? He surprised himself by his facility for fabricating a wide variety of such dark suspicions. No, he told himself, there was no doubt that last night had rattled him badly.

The cases were stowed inside. Carol was in the front passenger seat. He closed the door on her and looked up at the house.

It was a substantial Victorian mansion of grey sandstone, probably put up in the middle of the last century when labour and materials were cheap and families were large. There was a third storey, at least at the front. As well as the seven-sided room above their bedroom, there was a row of three attic windows set in the slanting black slated roof, the panes molten copper-red in the wintry sunshine. Old servants’ quarters, he imagined. He saw a further attic window above the bedroom over the dining-room, but belonging to a room not nearly as large as the seven-sided room.