He knows that so many daring, distressing and evil things are happening that, were he to witness them simultaneously, it would paralyse him. And he would most likely believe that the house would never be habitable again.

But his thoughts continue to trouble him, weaving around what happened when he was with John and Peter. He can see their faces when he told them he could not do it. There was no change in Peter’s expression, but it made no difference, he thinks.

He wanders downwards, wearied by all the accusations he is heaping on himself. There’s an arrow corridor. Bright and shining, with some slender arrows to swim alongside, if one should wish to walk there. Still shining, it turns a corner.

Henry pauses. He is not thinking of going down there, he is only looking at it. But that is enough; he is very near the limit now. Then someone puts his head out of a door in the shadow and calls out to him: ‘Henry’.

It makes him jump.

Who is this person who knows him? At once he takes a few paces towards the wall in order to obey the call and find out what’s wanted.

‘What is it?’ he asks without turning his head, looking straight in front of him. In these areas you never know when the eyes of the other side may be observing you.

‘Henry, where are you going?’ asks the voice behind him, so harshly in that quiet tone that it makes him shiver.

Henry stammers, ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m only out walking – what’s the matter?’

Do they watch every step I take? he thinks. Is that what happens the minute you fail to meet their demands? The thought is sinister. Have they no confidence in him any longer? The instant he left John’s room they must have started to follow him.

The voice behind him holds him fast. He cannot run away. That would be insane.

‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ it asks, without mercy and in a tone he recognizes from much that he has taken part in.

‘I’m not going there!’ he says. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m just out.’

The voice behind him is like stone as it says, ‘Then go somewhere else.’

He feels as if he has been seized by the scruff of the neck and thrown head first back to where he came from.

‘Yes, all right,’ he says.

‘And remember,’ says the voice in the door-crack or wherever it is coming from, ‘remember, we shall not lose sight of you.’

Henry does not answer. He stands in bewilderment, as if dragging himself to his feet after a fall. Of course I didn’t want to go down there. What are they thinking of?

John must have set this in motion that same instant, he realizes. There must be many things he is ignorant of, even though he was one of the group.

The voice behind him is holding him fast. He is forced to stay and listen to everything it has to tell him.