Season, almost blind with fear, ran through to the living-room. She said, ‘Sally! Sally!’ in a voice that didn’t even sound like her own. But as soon as she saw what had happened, she slowed, and lowered her arms, and walked the rest of the way across the floor as if she were being filmed in slow-motion. She was suddenly aware of the sunlight, and the breeze, and billowy drapes that rose and fell.

Granger Hughes was standing in the centre of the room, smiling and holding Sally’s hand. The only sign that the Angel called Carlo had been there was his black Magnum revolver on the glass-topped coffee table, and a broken lampshade. As Season knelt down in front of Sally and reached out her arms for her, quivering with the fright of what had happened, her eyes glistening with tears, Granger laid his hands on both of them in what was almost a benediction.

A young man in a clipped brown beard and a black T-shirt came in through the french windows, holding a rifle over his arm.

‘That’s all of them,’ he reported, quietly.

Season hugged Sally closer, and cried. They both cried. Then Carl came in with Vee, dabbing his mouth with a bloody kitchen towel.

‘Are you okay?’ asked Granger.

‘Thanks to you, yes,’ said Carl. He looked down at his safari suit and realised it was splashed in squiggles of the Angel’s blood. ‘My God, I don’t know what happened. How did you get here?’

‘I was coming up this morning to see if you wanted to join us down at the Church of the Practical Miracle,’ said Granger, gently and almost absent-mindedly stroking Season’s hair. ‘When we drove up from the road, we saw the bikes. That’s all. We were suspicious about what was going on, so Helmut here went around the back to the pool-deck and saw one of the Angels in the living-room with Sally. The dull bulb had laid his gun down on the table; I guess he didn’t think he was going to get any trouble from a nine-year-old girl. So Helmut crept in behind him and gave him the benefit of five years’ karate lessons.’

‘Is he dead?’ asked Carl.

Helmut, the bearded one, rubbed his knuckles. ‘If he isn’t,’ he grinned, ‘he’ll be lying there wishing he was.’

‘Now then,’ Granger admonished him. ‘Love thine enemy, even in defeat.’

Carl pulled a Mexican blanket off the sofa, brought it across, and draped it around Season’s shoulders. Vee had already pulled on her sun-dress again, although it was back to front.