On his way out he managed to corner the ward sister, an enormously fat young woman called Shirley or Shelly, who assured him that in all likelihood Alice would be free to go home in a day or two. It was a decision for the consultant, of course, and he wouldn’t be doing his rounds until Monday, but there was no reason to suppose he would want to keep her in. This was the good news the reverend wished to pass on, in person, to Alec, though it was not the only reason for his visit to Brooklands. There was something else, difficult to pin down or explain; a nagging uneasiness that had found its way into the shadow play of his dreams, where among the scurryings, the unexpected faces, the sudden departures, he had had the sensation of an impending danger; and though the nature of the threat had remained obscure, he was convinced it had something to do with the Valentines, and with Alec in particular, and that as a friend of the family and a man of the cloth, it was his duty to try to do something. After all, Alec had had his difficulties in the past. That business a few years back when he had simply disappeared, until they found him, the authorities, somewhere on the South Coast, on a beach apparently, though the reverend had never been certain whether he was merely walking along the beach, or out towards the sea.

That morning, the third since his mother had gone into the hospital, Alec had woken with the idea of creating a refuge for himself in the unused summerhouse in the garden. Somewhere to go when the others came, a place to retreat to with the play. No one had used the summerhouse for as long as he could remember. It was Stephen’s folly, a glorified tool-shed with a single window, some shelving, a bench outside. Honeysuckle and ivy had grown thickly over the wooden walls and roof, and probably stopped the place from falling down.