It was as well that she had made her plans so far in advance. Following on Robin Boyton’s death, the two cottages had been sealed by the police. It would be risky even to visit the cottages after dark, and impossible at any time to leave the Manor without the security team seeing her. But she had acted as soon as Miss Cressett told her that a guest would be arriving at Rose Cottage on the same day as Miss Gradwyn had been booked in for her surgery. It was her job to vacuum or wash the floors, dust and polish and make up the bed before a guest arrived. Everything had come together. Everything had been meant. She even had the wicker basket on wheels to hold the clean linen and to bring back the soiled bed linen and towels for washing, the soap for the shower and washbasin and the plastic bag with her cleaning materials. She could use the basket to bring back two of the bags of kindling from the Rose Cottage shed, a length of old washing line which had been dumped there and two cans of paraffin wrapped in the old newspapers she always carried to spread over newly washed floors. Paraffin, even safely carried, smelled powerfully. But where could she hide them in the Manor? She decided to wrap the cans in two plastic bags and stow them away under the leaves and grasses of the ditch by the hedge. The ditch was deep enough to prevent the cans being seen, and the plastic would keep the tins dry. The firewood and rope she could safely lock away in her one large suitcase under her bed. No one would find them there. She was responsible for cleaning her own room and making her own bed, and everyone at the Manor was punctilious about privacy.

When her watch showed two-forty, she was ready to leave. She put on her darkest coat, a large box of matches already in the pocket, and tied a scarf over her head. Opening the door slowly, she stood for a moment hardly daring to breathe. The house was silent. Now that there was no risk of one of the security team patrolling at night, she could move without fear that watchful eyes and keen ears were on the alert. Only the Bostocks slept in the central block of the Manor and she had no need to pass their door. Carrying the bags of kindling and the curled washing line slung over her shoulder, she moved quietly, step by careful step, along the corridor, down the side stairs to the ground floor, to the west door. As before, she had to stand on tiptoe to ease back the bolt and took her time, careful that no rasp of metal should disturb the silence. Then, carefully, she turned the key, went out into the night and locked the door behind her.