Miranda said suddenly, "I'm a little worried about Tracy. Shall I send Michael to fetch her down? She'd like these cakes so much."

"You have a replacement, you see," Rachaela said to Ruth, "a nice little pale, black-haired girl who acts as she should."

The door opened.

But it was not Tray. It was Camillo.

He came into the room with an odd mincing step.

"Late," he said. "There you are. Talking with my Cossacks on the hill."

He glanced at Malach, and then at Ruth. Camillo froze. It was as if he had come into the arctic cold, knowing how it would be, and as he turned to stone, he laughed.

"Mama," he said. "My father and my mother."

Ruth had moved a little. She drew back against Malach.

Yes, last time he gave her a mousetrap.

"Isn't she lovely," said Camillo. "Will she sing me asleep? Will she wrap me in the fur as we run away over the snow?"

"Tais-toi," Malach said.

"Mais non," Camillo said. "No, no I won't shut up. I like to say it. And I've brought a gift."

Camillo slipped forward to Ruth over the .carpeted ground, between the purity of the furniture. The dogs did not move. "Pour vous, Maman." He held out something long and thin.

It was a knitting needle. It was burned.

Bile whipped Rachaela's throat.

"From the heart of Anna. What you killed her with."

Malach got up. The dogs stirred.

"Get out," he said.

Camillo leered at him.

"Too old," he said. "Not to be hurt."

Ruth had risen too. She put her gloved hand upon Malach's arm. He checked.

"Camillo," Ruth said.

"Yes, Maman."

"Be my shame," Ruth said.

Camillo's face crumpled. He stepped back. He spoke in some other tongue.

Ruth nodded.

Camillo bolted from the room.

CHAPTER 39

JUST PAST EIGHT, STELLA CHECKED THE kitchen. The chicken was cooking juicily in its sauce of yoghurt, saffron, and garlic, and on the chopping board the primrose and iron-green peppers, the creamy banana and red apple, the onions and the almonds waited to be fried. The cannister of rice was full, but she peered into it again.

There were wine and beer, poppadums and hot chutney.

She went back into the main room and looked out of the curtains at the dark low night.

He would be here soon.

She sat on the couch and picked up a book, but she could not settle. She never could when she knew Nobbi was on his way to her.

She had not seen him since that time after Christmas. The time he had woken up in the night; "The Thieving Magpie."

Christmas was bad enough, anyway.

She bore it with fortitude.

Star and her mother had been used to celebrate. They had attached silver rosettes to the cat's collar, pulled crackers, watched the better films on television, got tiddly.

Star had never spent a Christmas with Nobbi.

One day.