Richard was just conscious. The bleary eyes wavered, but they saw.

"Now Richard. Say Christ." Richard groaned. "Say Christ fucks, Richard."

"Nnn—" said Richard.

Malach banged Richard's head hard into the bannister.

"Say Christ fucks, Richard. Christ was beautiful and flawless and wise, but you know nothing about him. In your mouth he won't be Christ at all. Say it, Richard. Christ fucks." And Malach, holding Richard's head by the ears, smashed it like the china on the bannister at the stairs' foot.

"Chri—" said Richard.

"Louder, Richard," Malach coaxed.

"Chri—fuh—"

"And now say cunt, Richard."

Richard shut his eyes and snot rivered from his nose.

Malach bashed Richard's head again against the wood.

"Say cunt."

"Cuh—"

"Ruth," said Malach, "fetch some soap." He cradled Richard's head on his thigh, smiling down at him, until Ruth came with a bar of Camay from the bathroom. Then Malach gently put the soap into Richard's wet mouth. "Wash your mouth out now, Richard."

In the bedroom, Malach found the ebony box. He touched the shoulder of the carved black man. Malach said, "I'm sorry."

The money fell out and Ruth went to it.

"No," said Malach. "You don't need money now."

And so Ruth set fire to the fifty-pound notes, and let them flutter down around Richard at the stairs' foot.

Richard was past shouting. He cried. His tears did not bring aid, or put out the fire.

When Linda came back at nine-thirty, walking with her arm in Iain's, little was left of the fudge house, or Richard Reeves, but a heap of black stuff.

CHAPTER 23

HALF-LIGHT. THE GARDEN DARKLY glowed before the dawn. The rain had left its garment behind it, drops which hung and glistened, and which dripped from polished leaf to leaf down into the high grass that was not yet lit to green.

The twisted fish shone and its basin was deeply filled. The straw hat had been removed.

Rachaela stood in the grove, between the feral apple and the fountain. She wore Althene's white dress, the long hem of which was soaked.

All around, the liquid shadow and the oaks like a forest. And silence, plectrumed now and then by the songs of birds. But they did not really sing. Surely there had been a dawn chorus, rehearsed and almost strident. What had subdued the birds? Did they know the earth grew old?

Her mood was strange.

Hormones, perhaps. After all, she was in her forties now, whatever her body looked like.

The grove might be in a forest, and it might have been anywhere. Some other country. Some land of her genetic past.