She did not want to think of it. Mostly because she had seen what had become of Ruth, after the murder, when Malach let her fall. Ruth had died. She was a corpse.

"I'll let it go until April," Rachaela said to Juliet. Juliet stared at her with azure eyes. Jacob came back, haughty, prepared to overlook the outburst. "That will be around three months. I can't tell Eric. They'll protest and find some way to stop it."

She put her hand over her stomach.

Was it alive?

Was she holding in the core of her a living thing, planning its death, Rachaela a killer, as her first daughter had been?

On the 1st April, April Fool's Day, the green telephone rang in the living room.

Rachaela ran to it, petrified, and could not lift the receiver.

"Don't be an idiot."

As she raised the green arm the line went dead and then there was the dialing tone.

"A wrong number," said Rachaela.

Is that you, Gladys?

As she was turning away, the phone rang again, and she dragged up the receiver wildly.

"Hallo?"

"This is Althene."

Rachaela sighed. It was as if she had been holding her breath for half an hour. Her legs shook and she sat down. Jacob pranced onto her lap.

"Jacob's here," Rachaela said, "he wants to speak."

"Fin so glad. But do you?"

"Of course. How are you?"

"I am well. And you?"

"Oh, yes. Very well."

"Rachaela, forgive me. I'm old enough I hate telephones, I am coming back. That is, I'm coming back today. This evening."

"You're—"

"And if you want to, Rachaela, you can meet me. I'll see to it a car is there for you at five o'clock. It will bring you to the airport. It will wait below the flats until half-past five. If you don't come out to the car it will drive away. That will be that. This is all I have to say. Goodbye."

Rachaela sat holding the phone, which Jacob was using for a scent-marking object, rubbing his head on it so violently that it was dashed from Rachaela's hand.

Rachaela got ready to meet Althene.

When she was finished, she put down plates of boiled cod for the cats, and refilled their water bowl, as if she would be gone a long while. That was possible. For what did Althene want?

She had changed the sheets on the bed, and put out extra towels, as she would for a guest. But actually, she thought, Althene would want to take her somewhere, some hotel, undoubtedly very glamorous, and then that would be that. Meeting. Parting.

Or else, there was some message Althene had been charged to deliver. By Malach. Or someone.

Rachaela put two bottles of Californian Colombard into the fridge. It was the wine with the taste of apples.

She had put on a gray skirt and gray waisted jacket over gray silk lingerie and gray stockings whose tops were patterned with cats.