At the far end of Front Street Stella began to move more slowly. She looked about her. Ramsay had to take care not to be seen. As he hid in doorways and stooped to tie already fastened shoelaces, he felt uncomfortable, ridiculous. How could he justify this wasted time? He should be looking for Mary Raven. What would he do if Stella ended up in the smart wine bar in the High Street, sharing a bottle of claret with her husband or one of her friends? Yet as he came closer to her he saw a desperation and an increasing lack of control in her movements that made him think she might be dangerous.

At a street corner she stopped suddenly and looked all around her. She must have seen Ramsay but, in her haste and agitation, seemed not to recognise him. Perhaps she was looking for someone else. He stood, thinking she was on the verge of some crisis as the pale blue eyes searched both sides of the street, then she set off again with her jerky, unpredictable walk.

She’s mad, he thought. She’s quite crazy.

She disappeared then down an alley into a street of small shops. Ramsay’s way was blocked by a group of schoolgirls in the old-fashioned brown uniforms of an expensive Otterbridge day school, and when he pushed through into the street, there was no sign of Stella. Most of the shops were closed. The sun was low and the street was peaceful. A newsagent was bringing papers from a rack outside in preparation for closing and on the far corner a couple of men were sitting on the steps of a pub waiting for it to open. It seemed as if Stella Laidlaw had vanished into thin air. He ran down the pavement, pushing at locked doors, peering into shop windows. When he came to the chemist shop, he thought that it, too, had closed. The window was unlit and only a sign on the door saying that the pharmacist was on the out-of-hours duty rota made him look inside. Stella was there, the only customer. She was talking to a respectable elderly gentleman in a suit, who stood behind a counter where the dispensing took place. It was hard for Ramsay to see what was going on. The shop was disorganised and dusty, and the window was cluttered with bottles of shampoos and boxes of food supplements and milk drinks. A normal exchange seemed to be taking place. The chemist disappeared into a little room behind the counter and Stella waited, pacing between a pile of disposable nappies and a tray of lipsticks. The chemist returned; she took a wallet from her handbag, paid him, and then almost ran out of the shop, although the man called after her that he owed her some change.