If her tone seemed oddly guarded, Hugh hadn't time to a.n.a.lyse it. 'I told him not to tell.'

'Why, Hugh?'

Even this sounded nervous, unless he was mistaking his state for hers. As he stared out of the window he had to make an effort to identify which direction Rory would arrive from. 'He'd no right, that's all,' he said.

'You mustn't blame him. Please don't fall out with him over that or anything else for that matter.'

'I expect you'll have done all the research you want, though.'

'I don't know.' In the same odd tone she said 'What have you found?'

'I told you how it hasn't changed, where we spent the night.' This made the situation sound more intimate than he could expect her to like, and he tried to leave the remark behind. 'Maybe something could be holding it like that,' he blurted.

'Holding.'

'From inside. Something that lives there.' He did his best to laugh at his presumption or her wary echo as he added 'In your book, I mean, obviously.'

'Obviously.'

Was she teasing him? She didn't seem to be enjoying it. 'Maybe you ought to have a look yourself if you haven't,' he said.

For some reason this silenced her and seemed capable of doing the same to him, or perhaps he was confused by a sudden notion that he mustn't turn around. 'I can tell you what to look for,' he tried saying.

'What?'

He could almost have imagined that she didn't want to hear. 'Some weird name,' he said.

'Don't say you've forgotten it, Hugh.'

Her laugh sounded dutiful yet not wholly unrelated to hysteria as he twisted around to glare at the room. Of course it was deserted all the way to the door, which led to the landing and the empty rooms and the unoccupied stairs that descended to the rest of the unpeopled house. 'I wouldn't when you might need it,' he a.s.sured Ellen. 'Look up Pendemon. Arthur Pendemon.'

'Who?'

He was starting to wish that his answers wouldn't lead to further questions; he felt as if he would never find his way out of the tangle of them. He turned back to the window, outside which the street led in two directions, the one no longer than the building and the far more extensive other, which ought to produce Rory any moment now. 'He lived there, whoever he was when he was at home,' he said.

'Where?'

'At the top where we all climbed up. It says that's the site of his house.'

Hugh was distracted by a sight beyond the window, more so once he realised it wasn't beyond. A ma.s.s of cloud as black as the depths of a pit had crept above the houses opposite to blot out the sun and display his dim reflection on the gla.s.s. He was dismayed to find he was grimacing, and glad that Ellen couldn't see a and then he began to distinguish the room behind him. It was darker than his image, and at first he could only make out the vague shapes of furniture. Why did he feel unwillingly compelled to search the reflection? He'd started to wonder what was keeping Ellen quiet by the time he located an object he didn't recognise a a more or less oval shape so dark as to be featureless, but identifiable by its outline as a head. Someone was behind him.

He spun around so fast that the mobile almost flew out of his grasp. A figure imitated him, even mocking the desperate grab his other hand made at the phone, and as he recognised the presence he was able to laugh a indeed, less able to stop. 'What's funny?' Ellen's tiny voice cried between his hands. 'What's wrong?'

'I thought someone was here. It was just the mirror,' Hugh said gradually more steadily as his mirth trailed off. 'Rory will be soon. Here, I mean.'

'Had I better let you go?' Just as reluctantly Ellen added 'Unless you've got something else for me.'

'I would have but the computer at the library went silly.' He was painfully aware how feeble this must seem, and as he faced the window again he said 'What have you turned up, then?'

'Do you mind if I don't talk about it just now?'

Hugh didn't. Indeed, he'd regretted the question before it had finished leaving his mouth, because it seemed bound up with the disquiet that his glimpse in the window had planted in his mind. The clouds had bared the sun, erasing the image of the room, leaving him unable to confirm that he'd seen the reflection of the mirror on the wardrobe and within it his own head. Since it would have been a back view, he couldn't have glimpsed anything like a face, never mind one that appeared to be peering out of its own darkness a soil in the eye-sockets, perhaps, and deep within it the shrunken vicious glint of buried eyes. If this was how having an imagination felt, he was glad he wasn't Ellen. 'Don't till you want to,' he said. 'I know writers aren't supposed to talk about their writing till it's done.'

'That's what you think it's about, is it, Hugh?'

Was he presuming by attempting not to? As he searched for any comment it would be safe to utter, Ellen said 'I'm sorry. I don't meant to be nasty to you.'

'You can if it helps.'

'It doesn't,' she said, but added 'Thanks for going to all that trouble for me.'

'I'd have done more if I wasn't stopped.'

'Stopped.'

The tone of her echo no longer tempted him to laugh. 'By their old computer,' he said.

'Oh yes, you did say.'

What was troubling her? Was she working too hard? Hugh made a last attempt to be of use. 'Are you taking a day off now and then?'

'For what, Hugh? Sitting inside myself? Having a good look at myself?' Ellen let out such a disgusted sound that he a.s.sumed she was more than impatient with any suggestion of indolence. 'I need to lose myself in my writing if I can,' she said.

'I expect that's what writers have to do, but couldn't you take a day off and still be sort of working?'

'How?'

Was a trace of the reflection confusing his view of the street? He was unable quite to grasp either while saying 'You could go and look at Thurstaston and see if it brings anything into your head.' When she kept her thoughts about this to herself, her silence made him babble 'It's close enough for an afternoon out, isn't it? You're the closest of anyone.'

He wasn't sure what she whispered then: surely not that she wished otherwise. 'I'm the next,' he blurted. 'I could come with you if you wanted.'

As soon as the offer stumbled out of his mouth he knew how mistaken it was. He might have imagined that the utterance had robbed him of the ability to put it into practice. He couldn't go with Ellen or indeed with anyone just now. So long as he faced the window he would know which way his brother had to come, but if he turned around he would lose that sense and everything that depended on it. He was striving to ignore any hint of a reflection on the gla.s.s when Ellen said 'I don't think that would be a good idea either.'

The longer they kept talking, the more desperate he might grow to admit his state. He mustn't trouble her with it, especially since he would be telling his brother about it very soon. At least Rory had a reason to come after all. 'I'd better let you go, then,' Hugh said. 'Good luck with your books.'

'Speak soon,' Ellen said as if she could think of no other response.

Hugh switched off her call and held the mobile in his hand, whichever of them wasn't gripping the windowsill. Though the sky had grown too clear to back any reflection, he wasn't going to turn so much as an inch. No face was peering out of the darkness it had brought. n.o.body was creeping closer, as silent as the depths of the earth, to wait for him to look. None of this could help Ellen or have anything to do with her, and so he should put it behind him, though he would have preferred a different choice of words. He wasn't a writer and shouldn't try to think like one. He should concentrate on the street. Rory would arrive that way, the long way, the one that took longest but certainly not much longer. Long before Hugh was unable not to glance over his shoulder he would be rewarded by the sight of Rory's van, and then a he was so sure of it that he didn't need to speak the hope aloud, to hear how empty the room and the house were except for himself a everything would begin to be just as familiar.

SEVENTEEN.

'Anyway, I should be getting back to work. How's yours?'

'I'm working on an idea. I'll say ta-ta. Hugh may be trying to call.'

'Let's hope so,' Charlotte said and looked up from nesting her mobile behind a pile of opening chapters accompanied by letters, most of them addressed to her by name and some of them spelled right, to find Glen loitering within earshot. He took her glance as an invitation to sidle behind her desk, perhaps so as only to murmur 'Problem?'

'I couldn't say.'

'Anything I should know about? Anything connected with us?'

She hoped he meant the p.r.o.noun to stand for the publishers. The sooner she satisfied him, the sooner he might leave her to feel a little less boxed in. 'Family matters,' she said.

'They can be the worst. I get the feeling maybe these aren't, no?'

'More like a problem in communication. Families have those.'

'You bet. Remind me to tell you about a bunch of mine sometime. So you don't think it's anything to put our author off her work for us.'

'I was just saying she's shaping up to be a professional.'

'That's what I like to hear. I guess she must have too.'

'I imagine she might, but I wasn't talking to her. It was another of my creative cousins.'

'Sounds like my kind of family. Who's this one?'

'He's an artist.'

'Professional? Can we use him?'

It was partly Charlotte's sense of being trapped in the meagre s.p.a.ce behind her desk, not to mention underground and under observation, that made her retort 'I don't think he'd be your sort of professional.'

'Hey, don't be so sure you know what I'm about.'

Charlotte glanced over the top of the box that contained her desk, but none of their colleagues appeared to be listening. Perhaps they were too intent on keeping their jobs under the new regime, unless eavesdropping on a disagreement might help. 'Forgive me,' she murmured, 'I didn't mean a'

'It's OK, I'm not blaming you.' Glen pushed a heap of bound American proofs towards Charlotte, clearing a corner of her desk to sit on. 'Just because I have to focus on what our bosses want,' he said low and aimed it down at her, 'all that means is leaving other stuff at home. It doesn't mean I stop appreciating what else matters.'

Above his head the aura of concentrated light around a fluorescent tube exhibited how low the concrete ceiling was a had always been. 'So who's your artist?' Glen said. 'What's his claim to fame?'

'Rory Lucas. I won't be offended if you haven't heard of him.'

'Wasn't he the guy who made the slide show of a bunch of famous paintings that you had to watch with all the random noises and bits of music?'

'Extra Sense,' Charlotte said, doing her best to hide her surprise. 'You heard about it, then.'

'More than heard. Went to see it when it was at the Tottenham Gallery. I liked the way the soundtrack changed how the pictures felt to you. And then I hung around to watch other people reacting. That was fun too.'

'I'm sorry I didn't see you. I went a few times.'

'Yeah, well, I was there. We missed each other.'

Charlotte hadn't intended to suggest otherwise, but before she could say so Glen said 'Anyway, I'm with you about him.'

'Well, good. I'm glad.'

Glen frowned for the duration of a blink. 'I'm saying I believe you're right, he's not for us. He wouldn't sell.'

Did he suspect her of doubting he'd visited the exhibition? Would the truth have made any difference? He was already saying 'OK, let's try and nail your other cousin down.'

'Have you had a chance to read her chapters yet?'

'Read them a couple of times. Once with dinner and once in bed.' He paused as if inviting a response before adding 'I think they work pretty well.'

'Well enough for us to make an offer?'

'Once you've worked your magic on them. And listen, don't let anyone tell you editing can't be just as creative as writing a book.'

'So we'll make an offer when . . .'

'Have we had her proposal for the next book?'

'She's working on it. She's found a setting for it.'

'Anywhere famous?'

'Maybe it will be by the time we're finished with it,' Charlotte said and couldn't understand why she was wary of saying 'Thurstaston.'

'Where's that? Why did she pick it, do you know?'

'It's on the coast looking out to the Irish Sea past Wales. We spent a night there with our other cousins the last time we camped out.'

'There'll need to be more to it. You're making it sound like a book for kids and a pretty old-fashioned one too.'

'I'm sure Ellen will invent something. She's done a lot of that already, after all.'

'Better make sure. No time like now.'

Even once he headed for his desk and she had room to move the heap of proofs aside, Charlotte still felt shut in. She had to glance behind her to check that the wall wasn't as close as the sense she had of a presence looming at her back. The darkness in the corner to her left was a shadow, not soil seeping through the plaster. It was absurd to delay speaking to Ellen, and she lifted her desk phone. As she began to wonder if the ringing wouldn't end until it snagged Ellen's automatic message, Ellen said 'Charlotte.'

'Just me. Not a reason to sound like that, I hope.'

'If you say so.' With no discernible lessening of nervousness Ellen said 'Had we better talk about Rory?'

'Why, what's the matter with him?'

'Nothing if you say not.'

'I don't know why I'd say anything was.'