Her shoulders tensed and she raised her chin threateningly. ‘That was … private. It’s how I find peace.’

‘Hm, peace. But anyway. You…’

‘If the whole world’s evil?’ she exclaimed angrily. ‘We have to have something to believe in, don’t we? Everyone needs a faith – something we can rely on, which is fixed and unchanging and can’t be … sullied. So why not admit that the world around us … Just look around you. Why not admit that Evil is in control and submit to it? In the struggle between darkness and light the powers of darkness have prevailed.’ She stared at the window again and for a moment I had to agree.

‘But out here you must’ve grown up with the chapel around the corner? You must’ve had a religious upbringing?’

‘So I was all the more open to an alternative baptism!’ she proclaimed triumphantly. ‘Rituals and blindness are the key. It 237doesn’t matter what you do or who you worship. What matters is that you do something and that you believe.’

‘And that gives you peace of mind and comfort?’

‘It does.’

‘Does it make you a respected and esteemed person in the local community?’

She swallowed again. ‘That’s got nothing to do with you. What goes on here is nobody’s business but mine. It’s self-denial for the Prince of Darkness’s sake. Something I’ll be rewarded for later. The same way you people make promises for your principles.’

‘I don’t make any promises.’

‘Then go to … heaven.’ She jeered at me, but in her voice there was a desperation that made her mockery seem self-defeating and evoke sympathy rather than anger.

I stood up. ‘So you still won’t tell me…’

‘No!’

‘Then I’m afraid you’ll have to expect a visit from the police.’

I let my reply sink in to see if that made her any more talkative.

‘I’ll have to expect them then. They can’t force me to remember something I’ve already forgotten.’

‘But you just said…’

‘By the time they come I’ll have forgotten everything.’

I watched her. She had a strange personality – strong and weak at the same time. She was the type of person who can make a foolish decision on an impulse and then cling to it, even if it leads straight to destruction and ruin. ‘Before you commit everything to oblivion, answer me one little thing that Anita omitted to…’

She eyed me with contempt. ‘Which was?’238

‘You mentioned something about an old school friend who was with The Harpers that night.’

‘Yes?’

‘You wouldn’t remember his name, would you?’

‘Yes, in fact I do. Because I’d met him before. He’d laid the bathroom floor for us a few months before.’

‘Laid the floor? So he was a builder?’

‘No,’ she said sarcastically. ‘He was a kindergarten teacher. What do you think he was?’ she snapped. Then she calmed down again. ‘Would you like to know his name?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what will you pay me?’

‘Pay? I can offer you…’ I slipped my hand into my inside pocket.