Edie went off, Gilly staring daggers after her.

‘I can’t decide if I hate her,’ Gilly said, once Edie had passed through the door and out of sight, ‘or if I want her to teach me how to be that stone-cold a bitch.’

Twenty-One

Toby spent hours carefully reproducing the fragile papers as hi-res digital copies that he and Rachel would find easier to read. Even when he wasn’t looking at the documents or in the camera obscura room itself, the device and the mystery occupied most of his thoughts. He hadn’t written any more of his memoirs since the night that Rachel had stayed with him at the cottage. How could he, when there were far more interesting topics on which to expend his time?

Rachel herself was one of these. She seemed to him as much of a conundrum as the one she had brought to him. Toby soon realized that the composure he had been so intrigued by from their first meeting was actually a form of deflection. There were aspects of her that were so opaque he wondered if he was truly seeing her at all. Still, in thinking about her, in spending time with her, something in Toby loosened. Some mechanism in him that had been rusted shut eased open and unwound. His night terrors didn’t cease, but they did lessen for the first time since he’d been shot.

Sylvie, naturally, was not happy.

‘You were right,’ his ex-wife declared, having called only to be told that yet again he had failed to complete another chapter. ‘This woman is otherworldly. She’s a witch! She’s cast some sort of diabolical spell and you’ve lost your mind!’

‘I haven’t at all,’ Toby said, only half listening because he was trying to decipher a particularly haphazard line of text instead. ‘As a matter of fact, I feel better than I have in a long time.’

‘That’s exactly what a witch would have you say,’ Sylvie grumbled. ‘Toby, this is ridiculous. You can’t sit around all day mooning over this woman. She told you she wasn’t interested! You haven’t turned into some sort of doolally stalker, have you?’

‘Of course I haven’t!’

‘Then what are you doing with your days?’ Sylvie demanded. ‘You need to work. I’ve got publishers here clamouring to give you money. Do you know how rare that is?’

Toby did, and he still didn’t care. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I am working, just not on what you want me to, all right?’

He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, but it was too late. He could almost see Sylvie’s ears pricking up beneath her perfectly coiffed head of hair.

‘Oh?’ she said. ‘Do tell.’

‘I can’t,’ he said, kicking himself. ‘Not yet. But I’m keeping busy, let’s put it that way.’ He squinted at his screen, trying to work out a word. Did that say ‘she’, or ‘sure’? He zoomed in a little more. ‘In fact,’ he said absently, ‘I’m really busy at this moment, as it happens. I’ve got to go, Sylvie.’