Informative as the Internet was, though, there was far more direct information to be had from Grace herself – if she could be induced to reveal it. Thinking back over everything she had said, Thea realised there was virtually nothing of any significance. The woman had come from Manchester with an indeterminate number of people, and somehow during the journey – presumably in a car – she 61had become alarmed, perhaps even afraid for her life. Arriving in or near Barnsley, she had run away, leaving all her possessions behind. At some point she had wrenched her shoulder and then further damaged it by falling off the big stile. Then she spent several hours hiding amongst the undergrowth and scrubby little trees, not knowing whether or not there was still a search for her going on. Yet when Thea had approached, the fugitive had deliberately emerged into full view. The implication of that was that Grace had seen a lone woman coming towards her and decided to appeal for help. Perhaps carefully staging the way she would appear, she had moaned miserably, clasping her shoulder, the picture of destitution. Anyone would have stopped to ask if she needed assistance. But she would have had to work fast – nobody could see over that impossibly high wall. Thea had not come into view until she was at the top of the stile, perhaps only about twenty seconds before Grace had crawled out of her secret lair.

The very elaborateness of the scene now made Thea suspicious. Had Grace waited all afternoon for the ideal hero to come along? Had she kept her eyes fixed on the stile, alert for a likely rescuer? Someone she could trust not to be associated with the gang or whoever it was that was hunting for her. Someone who looked easy to manipulate. Had Thea matched this specification in an instant, she wondered. And had she subsequently been found wanting? The lack of a car must have been a blow. Or was it, she slowly started to ask herself, even more sinister than that? Had Grace somehow known about the house-sitting, the lone woman in the insecure 62building, with no local attachments? Had she, Thea, been deliberately set up, not just by this one woman, but by a whole group of malefactors? Should she be afraid – or was it enough to simply feel very foolish?

Every word of what she’d been told could easily be fabrication. The shoulder wasn’t dislocated, for a start. It might actually be perfectly sound, the whole thing a pretence. The secrecy was alarming too, of course. People did not go into hiding, as a general rule. Battered wives, perhaps. Runaway teenagers. And criminals. All along, from the first words of the vague and shadowy story, Thea had understood, somewhere in the depths of her mind, that Grace had to be evading the forces of the law. This did not rule out the possibility that she was also being pursued by fellow felons, of course. But it now seemed glaringly obvious that she, Thea, was harbouring a wrongdoer of some description – with absolutely no good reason. There was no justification for remaining silent. And yet – perhaps there was. Perhaps Grace was a minor player, in genuine danger from more violent and ruthless crooks. Perhaps she intended to betray them to the police. Perhaps her shoulder had been wrenched by a large man grabbing her, intent on stifling her.