Lizzie touched the cover gingerly. Arthur was right; there was no flash of sensation this time, no visions, no sense of Johnny’s emotions when he had written his notes. It was as though he had somehow severed his connection to it and it was now nothing more than a pile of pages. Curious, though, she opened it.

Just as she remembered, there were endless scribbles, diagrams and drawings, sprawling charts that looked like family trees, dates with more jottings written over the top, crossings out and different colours, chaotic and rambling. She found the Robsart family tree and started to read.

“Sir John Robsart,” she said, “born circa 1480, son of Terrence and Lucy Robsart, married Elizabeth Scott, one child, Amy born 1532, died 1560...” Lizzie noticed that Amy had been twenty-eight when she had died, just like Amelia.

She read the next line of Johnny’s notes: “Amy had one elder half-brother, Arthur Robsart, son of Sir John Robsart and an unnamed mother, illegitimate but accepted into the family, and a number of other half-siblings...”

She looked up and met Arthur’s unreadable dark gaze.

“The similarities are uncanny, aren’t they?” he said evenly.

“I was reading about Amy Robsart last night,” Lizzie said. “This was exactly what set me thinking about Johnny’s reasons for disappearing. Avery mentioned Amy to me—you remember Avery Basing? She sold Oakhangar Hall to Amelia.” Then, when Arthur nodded, she went on: “I don’t know much about Amy—I haven’t had the chance yet to find out about her—but Avery drew my attention to the parallels between Amelia’s death and Amy’s.” She glanced back down at Johnny’s notes. “It seems that Johnny had worked all that out for himself.”

“Yeah,” Arthur said, “that and much more.” He shifted in his seat. “Johnny’s notes suggest that Amelia’s death was part of a replicating pattern that has played out a number of times down the centuries. It hasn’t just happened once and all the deaths are connected in some way to Amy Robsart, or Cumnor Hall or later, Oakhangar.”

Lizzie was silent. Around her she was aware of the chink of china and the hum of voices, the repeated ring of the bell as the shop door opened, the scent of cinnamon and chocolate. It felt reassuring and distant at the same time.

“Avery suggested much the same thing,” she said. “She thinks there is something evil trapped in the fabric of Oakhangar Hall and that it draws on the original tragedy of Amy Robsart’s death.” Despite the scented warmth of the shop she shuddered. Her tea had gone cold. She looked around for a waitress to request a refill.

“That sounds like stone tape theory,” Arthur said, then at her blank look explained. “It was a Victorian pseudo-science and became fashionable all over again in the nineteen seventies when someone made a movie about it.”

“Stone tape theory...” Lizzie picked up the notebook again. “Isn’t there something about that in here...” She flicked through the pages. “Yes, here—” She read aloud from Johnny’s notes: “The Stone Tape Theory speculates that inanimate materials can absorb energy from living beings. A ‘recording’ is laid down during moments of high tension or emotion. This stored energy can then be released, resulting in a display of the recorded activity. In some cases, place memories can be replayed by gifted individuals who claim to be able to interact with the events that are released.” She looked up. “I guess that individual would be me,” she said bleakly. “That’s what happened at Baynard’s Castle, except that I was the one who released the memory and Johnny was the one who interacted with it. It was just like reading an object only more intense.”