Suddenly she longed to be at home. Once she was away from Oxford, it would be easier. If she tried hard enough, she thought, she would have everything done by this evening. Then she could catch a late train and sleep tonight at home, in her own bed. Quickly she ran down the steps towards the house.

One by one the day’s disagreeable tasks were slowly accomplished.

Helen hated saying goodbye at any time, and now the word seemed dinned into her brain.

At the end of the afternoon, she made her way down the dark kitchen passage to the telephone. Her luggage was almost ready and she was going to ring and arrange for a mini cab to take her to the station. But first, she thought, she would telephone her bank and ask for her account to be transferred back to her home branch. There was no point in keeping it in Oxford.

To the bored clerk at the other end of the line she recited the details of her request while he took them down infuriatingly slowly. Helen breathed deeply in an effort to keep her patience. With her thumbnail she picked at a blister of paint on the coinbox and repeated her account number yet again.

‘And you wish to close this account, Miss Brown?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And the credit balance?’

‘Will be transferred to the reopened account at my home town. Could you give me the exact figure for the balance, please?’

The question was no more than a formality. Of necessity Helen always knew exactly how much money she had. At last the clerk came back with the answer.

‘With today’s deposit your balance is eight hundred and sixty-two pounds, seventy-two pence.’

‘What?’

‘Eight hundred and sixty …’

‘Yes, I did hear, but there’s some mistake. I have only about a hundred and ten pounds.’

‘That was before today’s deposit.’

Once again Helen drew a deep breath.

‘I haven’t made a deposit. There must be a mistake.’

After another long pause a different, slightly older-sounding voice came on the line.

‘Is there a problem here, Miss Brown?’

‘Not really. Just that a large sum of money has been wrongly credited to my account.’

‘Not wrongly. I have the slip here. It gives your name, address and account number quite clearly. And the seven-fifty was quite definitely paid in, in fifties. The only thing that I can’t make out is the signature. It’s one of those that starts with a big loop and goes on in a straight line with a few bumps in it. Does that mean anything to you?’

‘No,’ said Helen, utterly bewildered.

‘Nor to me,’ said the voice, with a trace of irritation. ‘Usually we only get complaints when it’s the other way round.’

‘Just leave things as they are for the time being, then,’ Helen said as calmly as she could and slowly replaced the receiver.