While Constance started to examine the back of the chair, Benny glanced down at the town below. Comfortable lights had popped up all over and the smoke of evening cooking was drifting from chimneys. A line of white steam marked the passage of a train along the branch line; she could just hear its sound in the distance, the regular beat of humanity at peace.

She thought of scarlet explosions, for a moment, of beams bursting across the valley, reducing the town to rubble in seconds. Actually, now that she’d got that picture in her mind, something about the valley fitted. A slow trail of brown smoke was drifting from the hospital, which still had a fire engine standing beside it. She shivered.

Constance was examining the base of the statue. ‘We’ll need a lever of some kind. What about your stick?’

‘I can do better than that.’ Benny unfolded a lightweight plastisteel crowbar from her jacket, pushed it into the thin gap between one of the stone panels and the surrounding masonry, and heaved. After much shoving, with Constance’s help, the panel came away and fell to the ground. Inside the block were a number of sticks of industrial dynamite, packed in straw with long taper fuses. ‘If only Ace were here,’ said Benny, frowning at the primitive explosives.

‘Who?’

‘Absent friends.’ Benny reached inside and grabbed a bundle. It was sticky. ‘I know nothing about this kind of thing, but this doesn’t feel very safe. How long have you had it here?’

‘Ever since I stole it from a quarry. The first time I was let out of prison and came down here on holiday, that was, oh, eighteen months ago?’

Benny sucked in a breath, and carefully put the dynamite back. ‘I think that’s going to be more trouble than it’s worth.’

‘As you wish.’ Constance watched as Benny replaced the panel at the statue’s base.

‘Is your motive for seeking a weapon purely revenge?’

‘Hardly. A friend of mine’s in trouble. I have to find a certain object to help him.’

‘And where is this object?’

‘Ah, that’s the question, isn’t it? I have a terrible feeling that I know who’s got it. In any case, I’m in a bit of a pickle.’

Constance checked the edges of the replaced panel of masonry and straightened up.

‘You’re not in a pickle at all. Where were you planning on staying this evening?’

Benny knew the answer to that instantly. She’d steeled herself for another night in the woods, already welcoming the idea of being alone like a boxer welcomes the first punch. But Constance gave her a little more heart. ‘Perhaps there is somewhere. The house of a friend. If I tried to take that little lot down there, I think I’d explode on the way.’