She and Rascal must be alone with their loss a little while longer. She does not think she can look anyone in the face just yet.

Will you answer? he had asked, and she had promised to do what she could. So that when she was told that he had been caught she had tried with all her might to concentrate on him. But there had been no more to it than that. She knows no more than that.

I know nothing, she thinks, still sitting.

Rascal starts pestering her. ‘We must go to Grandpa now.’

‘Weren’t you the one who was going to sit quiet as a mouse?’

‘Not all the time. You said we ought to go.’

‘We’ll go when I can face it, Rascal.’

He sits down again. After a while his mother starts up in fright: ‘Listen.’

Rascal listens. ‘There’s someone outside!’ he says. His ears are sharp enough for sounds like that.

‘Yes, there is.’

She notices Rascal’s sudden flush. Perhaps her face is the same? Who is coming in? One can expect anything.

An old man enters, laboriously. Grandpa himself. It is a long time since he has brought himself to go so far from his own room. But here he is.

She gives a little cry of relief and then looks down at the floor once more.

‘Oh, is it you? I thought…’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It’s only me…. I’ve heard,’ he adds, taking his time.

Rascal has sprung to his feet. ‘We were coming to see you straight away. But Mother couldn’t go yet, and so we –.’

The other two are not listening to him. Karen is sitting crushed, without looking up. Only that quick glance to see who was coming in. Not yet, she is thinking. Don’t look at anyone yet. It could be –.

Then the old man calls to her: ‘Karen.’

She looks up at his strange, kindly tone. But what is it? flashes through her as she does so. Isn’t it true? She searches his face. ‘Isn’t it true after all ?’ she exclaims.

He looks questioningly at her. But his eyes are shining. That was what she had seen.

‘Isn’t he dead?’

His face clouds over, but it is shining as well.

‘Oh yes, I’m afraid Stig is dead, and yet –.’

She begins to understand him. She is secretly grateful to him, seeing him standing there on his poor feet. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ she says, out of a sudden mist.

17

Drawing Lots

Peter and Henry are sitting in an unfamiliar room somewhere, not in their cellar. John is out.

The news that Stig has been caught and taken to the centre has encircled them, penetrated them and settled there like a cold weight a long time ago.

They keep an eye on the door. There are double doors but the inner one is open, so that they can hear more easily if someone should be approaching out in the passage.

They have been ordered to keep away from the cellar for a while. To abandon their work and leave no traces, because of the bitter truth that Stig will be facing the ordeal, and nobody knows anything more.