Meredith returned to his seat. He retrieved the notebook which had fallen when he leaped forward to restrain Ann. Opening it, he read: ‘ “At the fatal accident enquiry, the witness William Metcalfe stated that the boat met a sudden gust of wind. Before the occupants could shift position, the boat heeled over and capsized. He did not see Miss Rolfe again though he dived again and again to find her. He even looked under the upturned boat to see if she had been trapped under the sails. But, he said, there was no sign of her!” ’ He looked up. ‘ “Her body was recovered three hours later. The verdict was death by misadventure.” ’ He rubbed his chin, his eyes on the hypnotized woman. ‘Perhaps you’d better bring her out of it, Bourne. She’s certainly given us a lot of food for thought. Enough for this evening. Obviously we’ll have to discuss our future line of approach before we proceed.’

‘Agreed.’ Bourne turned to Ann. Giving her the usual suggestions that she would be restored to ordinary consciousness feeling rested, relaxed and refreshed, he wakened her up.

‘How do you feel, Ann?’

‘Fine.’ And indeed she seemed calm and happy.

‘Do you remember anything at all of what went on while you were hypnotized.’

She thought for a moment, a slight frown between her dark brows.

‘No. Should I?’

Bourne smiled, shook his head.

‘No. That’s all right. You did very well indeed.’ He paused. ‘And now – ’

She shrugged, sketching exaggerated resignation. ‘And now you want me out of the room as usual. Yes?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

She stood up.

‘All right. I’ll go and put on kettles for coffee and for hot-water bottles.’

Carol offered to help her. When they had left the room, Pollard passed round a packet of cigarettes. He lit his own.

‘Well, now, what are we to make of all that?’

Meredith closed the notebook.

‘Well, there are a number of possibilities that have occurred to us. Accepting that Ann is genuinely hypnotized – and I do – she may be role-taking, that is she may have read an account somewhere of Mary Rolfe and of her death and is now acting it out.’

‘But she got it wrong,’ Pollard pointed out. ‘As far as we know, Mary Rolfe’s death was an accident.’

‘As far as we know.’ Meredith agreed. ‘But Ann may have dramatized it.’

‘And this,’ Pollard said slowly, ‘would be the most reasonable explanation.’

‘Surely it depends on what you mean as reasonable,’ Bourne said. ‘If we continue and find that in her state of “Mary Rolfe”, Ann provides us with large quantities of information about Ardvreck House and its occupants she could not have acquired normally except by long and painstaking researches in a number of sources, then the cryptomnesia role-taking hypothesis becomes less and less reasonable.’

‘What are the other possible theories?’ Paul asked.