She started to gather up the box and put all the bits and pieces back. Perhaps she’d moved it over to the bed and had simply forgotten. She was so tired and her head still hurt. Then she noticed. The stone angel, the one she had accidentally taken from Oakhangar Hall on Amelia and Dudley’s wedding day, which she had shoved into the bottom section of the box years ago and forgotten, was not there.

She sat down on the edge of the bed.

Johnny.

The closed door, the lights extinguished... She hadn’t been imagining things. Johnny had been in here and since he had not bothered to cover his tracks, he obviously did not mind her knowing it.

She had no idea why Johnny had taken the stone angel; she didn’t even know how he had come to realise she had it in her possession. The only thing that seemed clear was that he had planned it all. The thought hurt her. She’d thought that Johnny liked her. She’d felt empathy for him because she had seen something of her own situation in his and now it felt as though he had lied to her and screwed her over. Worse, though, was the fear of what he had really been feeling and thinking. Johnny was obviously even more disturbed and unbalanced than she had feared. He needed help. She hoped desperately that he was home and safe.

She flopped down on the bed in the middle of the sprawl of clothes and half-filled bags. What a mess. Johnny had stolen from her something she should have given back years ago. Somehow, he had known she had the stone angel, and where to find it. And why had he then asked her to go down to the Embankment with him to look at the remains of Baynard’s Castle? She had thought at the time that it was odd but now she wondered whether in fact it had been random or if it was all part of a plan. She had touched the stone, she had seen the vision, and Johnny had gone, leaving her sick and alone... None of it made any sense to her but the more she thought about it the more disturbing it became.

Scrubbing her palms over her eyes, she blinked and sat up. It was then that she saw the notebook, or a corner of it, poking out from beneath the end of the bed. She leaned over the edge and snatched it up. It was a small dark green rectangle, lined inside, the pages ruffled as though well used and with a thin darker green ribbon sticking out of the bottom. Lizzie opened it. It was full of endless notes, diagrams and drawings, sprawling charts that looked like family trees, dates with more scribbles written over the top, crossings out and different colours, chaotic and rambling.

She had never seen Johnny’s writing but she knew this must be his. She wondered whether he had dropped it, or left it on purpose for her to find. She wondered if he was messing with her mind. Was this payback for Amelia? Suddenly she didn’t know anything anymore.