I twisted the handle on Diana’s bedroom door and pushed. It was locked. I tried a couple of the doors on either side, but they opened smoothly onto a bathroom and an empty boxroom. I went back to Diana’s door and knocked lightly, in case she was able to open it from the inside, but as I did so I recalled those old-fashioned keys in Cory’s pocket. Like a Victorian housekeeper, I’d thought yesterday, in my innocence. Like a jailer, I thought now.

“Diana?” I stooped to peer through the keyhole. The corner of the window was visible, and part of a bedpost. “Diana? Are you there?”

There was no sound. However still I held myself, nothing beyond the door was louder than my own heartbeat. I sank onto my knees and leaned my head against the door. God, I felt ill. My skin was prickly with heat, and at the same time I felt chilled through and through. If I’d been granted that one elusive wish—right there, right then—I’d have been in my narrow bed at home, with the covers over my head, and Byrne Hall would be a feverish dream I’d left behind in my sleep. I’d describe it to Stella when she popped in to check my temperature, and she’d say, “You weirdo. Why don’t you dream of something nice?”

I tried the door handle one more useless time. “I’ll come back, I promise,” I said with my lips to the keyhole. “Don’t . . .” I faltered. Don’t what? Don’t go anywhere?

“Don’t be afraid,” I said, but I was starting to shiver, and it made the words sound feeble.

“Cory!”

I stood over the bed, trying not to sway on my feet, trying to think above the buzz in my ears. He had fallen into bed fully clothed, dead to the world, and didn’t stir at the sound of his name. I looked around for the keys, but of course they were in his pocket, safe beneath the weight of his body. I gave his shoulder an experimental jab, and he muttered but didn’t move.

I took my damp clothes off and got into bed. I couldn’t think with my skin so clammy and my feet like ice; I might manage better if I were warm. Cory was giving off a drowsy heat and usually I would have wrapped myself round his back, but now I stuck to my side of the mattress, lying right on the edge, as far away from him as possible.

Perhaps Maggie got it wrong. I kept seeing the tray—with the rose, and the tablets, and the lipstick-stained glass—that proved Cory a liar. I just have to work out how she got it wrong.