The camera was placed in one corner of the cold room, Fletcher behind it. Joyce went through the clapperboard ritual and stepped aside. Bourne watched while Pollard and Smith tried to roll back the worn, dun, patternless linoleum. It was so ancient it cracked and crumbled, frayed fragments breaking off to be thrown into a corner. Underneath they saw a dusty layer of old newspapers. The floorboards were filthy below the papers. Ann and Meredith stood by the door just inside the room, Hunt beside them. Carol and Paul stood behind them in the threshold.

‘As far as we know,’ said Bourne, ‘the loose floorboard was somewhere near the middle, near the left-hand wall.’

Pollard and Smith tested the region, stamping with their feet on each board. None seemed loose. Pollard rubbed his chin, leaving a smear of dust on it.

‘Well, there’s nothing for it. We’ll have to lift them one by one.’

‘No, wait!’ Bourne’s eyes glinted. ‘There’s another way. Ann, would you please step forward.’

The young woman did so, obviously puzzled by the proceedings.

‘Ann, I wonder if we may try hypnotizing you here?’

With only a moment’s hesitation, she agreed.

‘Good. Now this time although you will go under, you will remain standing. All right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fine. Ten, five, nine, four, eight, three, seven, two, six, one. Sleep!’

The girl’s head tilted forward, her eyes closed, her body seemed to relax but she remained upright. Over in the corner the eye and film of the camera saw and recorded as Bourne regressed the young woman to the year eighteen-ninety-two. And once again, for the last time, the voice of Mary Rolfe was heard.

‘Now, Mary, you are in your bedroom.’

‘Yes.’ The tone was listless, uninterested.

‘Come with me to the door.’ Bourne waved the watchers backwards into the low passageway even as he took the girl by the arm. Slowly, like a somnambulist, she allowed herself to be steered to the threshold.

‘Now, Mary, you are just entering your bedroom. You have the feeling that someone may have discovered the loose board. You are going to cross to it and check that the bottle is still there.’

For a moment she hesitated then moved forward, her eyes still closed. She stepped round something, crossed to the left-hand wall and knelt, left hand leaning against it. In doing so she made a gesture with the right that Paul realized with an icy shiver was the raising of a long skirt. Her right hand reached out – under her bed? – and felt across the boards. The watchers saw her fingers press the floor, feeling, testing. A frown of perplexity appeared on her face. Meredith felt his unease deepen.

‘She’s mixing up her eighteen-ninety-two memories with present-day sense data,’ he whispered tensely.

The girl sobbed. She stood up, her back and hands pressed to the wall. Her eyes opened. Slowly her gaze roamed the room. Perplexity changed to horror.