I acted without thought. I threw myself as hard as I could at Bryce. We both went flying. And good thing, too. Because we were still rolling when I heard an enormous explosion. I ducked my head to shield my eyes, so I didn’t actually see the piece of timber explode. But I heard it. And I felt it, too. Those tiny splinters of wood hurt as they pelted me. Good thing I was wearing wool slacks, too.

Bryce lay so still beneath me that I thought maybe a chunk of wood had got him between the frontal lobes, or something. But when I lifted my face from his chest, I saw that he was OK – he was just staring, horrified, at the ten-inch-thick plank of wood, nearly two feet long, that lay a few feet away from us. All around us were scattered shards of wood that had broken off the main piece. I guess Bryce was realizing that if that plank had succeeded in splintering his cranium, there’d have been little pieces of Bryce scattered all around that stone floor, too.

‘Excuse me. Excuse me—’ I heard Father Dominic’s strained voice, and saw him push through the crowd of stunned onlookers. He froze when he saw the chunk of wood, but when his gaze took in Bryce and me, he sprung into action again.

‘Good God in heaven,’ he cried, hurrying towards us. ‘Are you children all right? Susannah, are you hurt? Bryce?’

I sat up slowly. I frequently have to check for broken bones, and have found, over the years, that the slower you get up, the more chance you have at discovering what’s broken, and the less chance there is you’ll put weight on it.

But in this particular case, nothing seemed broken. I got to my feet.

‘Good gracious,’ Father Dom was saying. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ I said, brushing myself off. There were little pieces of wood all over me. And this was my best Donna Karan jacket. I looked around for Heather – really, if I’d have found her at that particular moment, I’d have killed her, I really would have . . . except, of course, that she’s already dead. But she was gone.

‘God,’ Bryce said, coming up to me. He didn’t look hurt, just shaken up a little. Actually, it would have been hard to hurt a guy as big as he was. He was six feet tall and broad shouldered, a genuine Baldwin.

And he was talking to me. Me!

‘God, are you OK?’ he wanted to know. ‘Thank you. God. I think you must have saved my life.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘It was nothing, really.’ I couldn’t resist reaching out and plucking a splinter of wood from his sweater vest. Cashmere. Just as I’d suspected.

‘What is going on here?’ A tall guy in a lot of robes with a red beanie on his head came pushing through the crowd. When he saw the wood on the ground, then looked up to take in the gaping hole where it was supposed to be, he turned on Father Dom and said, ‘See? See, Dominic? This is what comes of you letting your precious birds nest wherever they want! Mr Ackerman warned us this might happen, and look! He was right! Somebody might have been killed!’