Fear flooded her mind. She jerked backwards against the heavier bulk behind her. Almost unconscious of the cold hand pressing and probing her body – or the chill spreading over her back and hips – she tried to wrench her eyes away from the opening door.

‘Paul,’ she whispered. ‘The door. Look!’

She attempted to turn her head, tried to force her body round. In his need he seemed intent only in imprisoning her in his clasp. Her inability to move and the threat of what lay behind the opening door fired panic within her.

‘No!’ she gasped. ‘No, no!’

Vaguely aware of a sound like exhaled breath in her ear, she saw a dim figure slip round the edge of the door. In the moment in which she recognized it her mind, wildly attempting to integrate perception before and around and behind her, crashed into uncomprehending, outraged panic.

Paul, just inside the door, froze motionless as her first shrieks tore the chill air of the room. He had hoped to slip into bed without awakening her. And she had thought he was an intruder. The sight of her convulsively flailing limbs under the heaving blankets and the continuing screams brought him to action. Striding to the bedside, he stooped towards her struggling body.

‘It’s all right, darling! It’s me. You’re safe. Calm down. It’s me, darling. I’ve got you safe.’ On and on he murmured his reassurances while he fought to contain her frenzied attempts at escape. Only when he was sitting on the edge of the bed, with the girl in his arms, her body twisted into his like that of a terrified child, did she begin to respond. By the time the others had arrived, she had controlled her shrieks of pure horror. Sobbing convulsively, her body trembling violently, her hands clutching painfully at him, she had recovered from the mindless state of terror sufficiently to recognize that this time she was in the arms of her husband.

They searched the room. Meredith and Pollard examined the window seals; Smith and Hunt opened the wardrobe, looked under the bed. Every space where someone could lie concealed was looked at. Carol, in housecoat now, standing before Paul with his arms about her, watched numbly. Occasionally a shivering fit seized her body. Bourne, wakened by her screams, stood just inside the door. Ann and Joyce, Cliff Swanson and Harry Fletcher clustered together on the gallery just beyond the open door.

The men found nothing. The telltale seals were intact.

Bourne, in a plum-coloured dressing-gown, thrust his hands into its cord-edged pockets.

‘Mrs Wilson, I’m not quite sure I understand what happened. You say someone was in your bed. Mr Wilson, you were up?’

‘Yes. Meredith, Hunt, Pollard, Smith and I were up. We had been downstairs and were coming back to our rooms when . . . when it happened.’ He felt her tremble and tightened his grip about her.