‘Quite right. And this Paisnel had a secret room, hadn’t he, with a pottery frog or toad in it and that was supposed to be “part of it” too. And there was one of these Papist Palm Sunday crosses in the car he was nabbed in and they say he screamed when they asked him to touch it.’

‘Codswallop?’ I prompted.

‘Not necessarily. Seen too many funny things myself to be ready to scoff at, ah, funny things.’

‘In India, I dare say?’

He glared at me suspiciously.

‘Yes,’ curtly. ‘There and elsewhere. Well, mustn’t keep you chaps any longer. Good of you to help, very.’

Hunger stabbed me as I drove home. There was nothing inviting in the fridge, certainly not the half of a cold duck, but I happen to know where Jock hides his ‘perks’ and I spitefully wolfed a whole tin of caviare (the real Grosrybrest; Jock steals nothing but the best, he spurns Beluga and Ocietrova) on hot toast and left the kitchen in a horrid mess. On purpose.

Upstairs, Johanna appeared to be asleep and I slunk gratefully into bed like a thief in the night.

‘Gotcha!’ she yelled triumphantly.

‘Have a care, for God’s sake, you’ll have me singing alto.’

‘Where have you been, you naughty little stud?’

I told her the whole story and she listened enthralled.

‘Let’s play rapists,’ she said when I had finished.

‘I’m not climbing through any bloody window.’

‘I’ll let you off that bit.’

‘But I haven’t a rubber mask.’

‘Extemporize.’

‘Oh, really.’

‘I shall pretend to be asleep and you shall sneak into the room and leap upon me and work your wicked will and I shall scream and scream but very softly so as not to wake our nice landlord.’

‘Promise not to scratch?’

‘Only gently.’

Much later I crept down to the kitchen to make myself a jam-sandwich. Jock was there, moodily eating baked beans. He bore all the marks of a servant who has lost heavily at dominoes. We did not speak. I, for one, was thinking.

3

Who hath given, who hath sold it thee,

Knowledge of me?

Has the wilderness told it thee?

Hast thou learnt of the sea?

Hast thou communed in spirit with night? have the winds

taken counsel with thee?

Hertha