'You must all come inside and have something to warm you up,' said Maisie.

Everyone began to protest, saying they were close to home and far too wet, but Maisie was having none of it. 'You've saved our home today. Another hour or maybe less, and the water would have been inside. No one is going anywhere until we've had a chance to say thank you properly. Our fire will still be lit, and it won't take a minute to get it going properly again. So what if you're wet? Our veranda is always full of wet gear; just leave your outside stuff in there and get warmed up. I can soon rustle up some hot drinks.'

'I've got a nice drop of scotch in the sideboard.' Fred winked at Brian. 'Just the job on a day like this.'

Jo's first instinct was to decline and beat a hasty retreat back to the safety of The Hideaway, but she knew that it would appear churlish if everyone else accepted. Then she caught sight of Sean's face, and realized how mean-spirited it would be to drag him away from what was taking on the semblance of a celebration: the victory of the Easter Bridge Irregulars over the Elements. So she fell into step with the others, following Maisie back to Throstles, where everyone peeled off their soaking outer garments in the veranda as instructed, before hesitantly entering the sitting room in their stockinged feet.

While Fred switched on the lights and stoked up the fire, Maisie conjured up a pile of towels, which she handed round for people to mop their faces or rub down their hair. The towels were followed in remarkably short order by plates of biscuits and fruitcake, mugs of tea and hot chocolate and optional tots of whisky. Catching Jo's eye, Fred said that he was sure it would be OK for Sean to have some, provided it was diluted with a drop of water. 'He's done a man's work today, haven't you, lad?' Fred said, in that hearty way which childless septuagenarians think the ideal tone to address a teenage boy. Sean accepted the gla.s.s and mumbled, 'Thanks,' blushing to the roots of his hair.

'I don't understand how that tree got swept down in the first place,' said Jo. 'It's such a weight: you would never think a little stream like that would be enough to shift it, not even with the amount of water coming down today.'

'It wasn't swept down today,' Sh.e.l.ley explained. 'It came down ages ago when we had that big blow, this time last year. Mr Tyson did say he was going to cut it up, but I suppose he never got round to it. It wouldn't have mattered normally, because the way it was lying across the beck, the water usually pa.s.ses right under it with loads of room to spare. But with the beck running four or five times higher than normal, smaller stuff started to catch on it and build up, so that before you know where you are there's a blockage. Then of course, the water starts finding itself another route.'

'We've been so lucky,' Maisie put in. 'If Gilda hadn't spotted what was happening and alerted everyone, the first thing we would have known about it was when water started coming into the house. We're in a little dip here, and once it came down the steps at the back, that would have been it.'

'It was pure chance,' Gilda said. 'I happened to go upstairs for something, looked out of my bedroom window and saw the way the water was spreading out across the field. If I had gone up just a little bit later it would have been too dark to notice.'

'Well, we've Gilda's sharp eyes to thank and of course all of you, for turning out to help. That's what's saved our bacon,' said Fred.

'To good neighbours,' said Maisie, raising her gla.s.s.

'To good neighbours,' everyone repeated.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

The scale of the flooding which overtook c.u.mbria that night emerged gradually via the television news, the internet and word of mouth. Towns in the north of the county captured the majority of the headlines, for here the devastation had been most marked, with bridges collapsed and loss of life. The inundation left its mark further south, too, where lakes rose dramatically, rivers burst their banks and water found its way into hundreds of homes, businesses and vehicles, spreading across roads to a depth which turned normally landlocked communities into islands, enforcing the closure of shops, schools and offices, which, if not entirely cut off, were deficient in stock, pupils or staff.

Marcus telephoned, alarmed by what he was hearing on the news, only to be rea.s.sured that all was well. Jo made a point of emphasizing to him Sean's part in the work of defeating the rising water. Credit where it was due.

In places where no real damage had been sustained, life swiftly returned to normal. It even stopped raining for a few days, and when Marcus was at home he began to talk enthusiastically about Christmas. His last tour of 2009 was scheduled to finish on 22 December, after which he would be at home for almost a fortnight. 'We'll get some walking done,' he said. 'Maybe we could have a look at some of your suggestions for the Artists in the Lakes tour.' His heartiness struck an artificial note. They both knew that she had done nothing about the idea for months, and the deadline for inclusion in their 2011 programme would soon have come and gone.

Jo knew that Marcus genuinely liked Christmas, and in previous years she had endeavoured to make a great deal of it. Not just for Marcus, but also because she was ever mindful of the possibility however faint that Lauren might be there to share it with them. Wasn't Christmas the time of triumphant homecoming? The arrival of the long-lost relative, the erstwhile lover and returning prodigal sons the time of family unity, reunion and forgiveness? Imagine if Lauren were to come home at Christmas, and find instead of fairy lights and tinsel, an undecorated house without so much as a mince pie in the larder to herald the festive season. So, this year, as she had done every year, Jo decorated the Christmas tree in mid-December, wound garlands of expensive artificial greenery around the uprights which supported the banisters and stocked up the cupboards with everything from brandy snaps to pickled gherkins. It seemed to take her longer than usual, and all her efforts felt hollow, not least because she was unable to summon up much optimism that this year would be the one when she was finally able to lay that longed-for extra place at the Christmas table.

There had been no more postcards, seash.e.l.ls, or any other signs and portents. Nor was she getting any further with Dr Heinsel's Method. She had relived their final day with Lauren again and again, but her memory was treacherous, forever introducing someone or something alien to the scene, some cunningly contrived distraction which prevented her from seeing what had really happened.

As the number of unopened windows on the advent calendar decreased, the Met Office began to forecast heavy snow. There was already snow on the tops, of course. They had been iced white since mid-October, but the valleys remained green save for the spun-sugar frosts which settled across everything on clear nights. Jo had very little faith in the Met Office. They seemed to get it wrong as often as they got it right, and changed their forecast from hour to hour. The most reliable indicator was still a glance through the window, and on the Sunday morning before Christmas any fool who had risen early and looked out into the grey half-light could tell that snow was imminent. Sure enough, a curtain of white flakes began to descend at breakfast time, steady and persistent, the kind of snow which an experienced Lakeland dweller recognizes as here to stay: picture-postcard pretty, but creating havoc on the roads. Easter Bridge was well off the route of any gritting lorry, and there was never enough pa.s.sing traffic to keep the lane clear. Not that pa.s.sing traffic would be a match for this stuff, which had soon fallen to a depth which could be measured in inches.

Jo watched the garden transform itself into an ill.u.s.tration from a children's story Winter Holiday perhaps, or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. At around eleven o'clock the sound of feet stamping beside the front door alerted her to Sh.e.l.ley's arrival. She had come to deliver their Christmas card, and at Jo's invitation was easily persuaded to divest herself of coat and wellingtons while Jo located their card and made some tea to have with mince pies. The November floods had drifted her back into the orbit of her neighbours. She had returned Sh.e.l.ley's books, and even exchanged an uneasy greeting with Gilda when they pa.s.sed one another in the lane.

'Is Sean out, enjoying the snow?' Sh.e.l.ley asked, cupping her hands round the warm mug.

'He's still in bed. I expect he'll want to take the sledge out when he gets up. Harry's family are supposed to be coming up for Christmas, so if this carries on the kids will have a whale of a time.'

'Do you think they'll still come, if the weather's like this?'

'I suppose so. They've got a four-wheel drive. More fun for Sean if Harry's here.'

'Isn't Gilda's daughter home? I bet she'd like to go out sledging.'

'Sean thinks younger girls are beneath his attention.'

Sh.e.l.ley shrugged. 'I would have thought he'd be glad to have someone to throw s...o...b..a.l.l.s at. And I bet he'll be interested enough in a couple of years' time. That girl is going to be absolutely stunning. I don't mean to be rude, but she doesn't get it from her mother, does she?' Sh.e.l.ley took a dainty bite of mince pie and masticated thoughtfully, before saying: 'This is nice. Did you buy them at Booths? My mum used to make her own and you could have paved the streets with them they were all pastry and no mincemeat.'

'Mine used to buy them,' said Jo, 'when she remembered.'

There was a short silence.

'We're supposed to be going down to my parents for Christmas.' Sh.e.l.ley paused for another mouthful of pie. 'Although I don't think we will if this weather keeps up. Brian won't be broken-hearted, I can tell you. My dad's driving us all crazy with his family tree. He started with the online census, but now he's going off all over the place, looking at old gravestones and heaven knows what. You can hardly get in the door these days before he's producing a huge long chart and going on about great-uncles no one has ever heard of, and people emigrating to Canada in 1850. I can't keep up with it, and Brian isn't interested at all.'

'I don't suppose it is very interesting unless it's your own family.'

'And believe me, not always then.'

After Sh.e.l.ley had gone, it occurred to Jo that she could have asked her to pop their card for the Perrys through the door of Throstles as she pa.s.sed, although asking someone else to deliver your Christmas card was a bit lazy, surely. And anyway, trudging along the lane in the snow to deliver them yourself was very traditional, very A Christmas Carol. That was the proper way to do it. What had Brian said about people managing before things had been mechanized? Not that the tradition of exchanging cards went back all that far, but never mind.

The card destined for the Perrys was propped up on the back of her desk in the office, where it had been left with Sh.e.l.ley and Brian's when she took all the others to the post office. It struck her that she could not walk to the Perrys without pa.s.sing The Old Forge. She had never so much as considered adding Gilda to her Christmas-card list, but there was something very pointed about walking straight past the woman's gate with a card in her hand which was obviously destined for the only other permanent residents. Gilda was part of their tiny community, too. She thought of the way Gilda had saved the day when she spotted the overflowing beck in the nick of time; Gilda tugging on the rope, while the rain beat down on her shiny, black-clad shoulders ... Gilda always being the last person to be picked for teams, the only Christmas cards to appear on her desk coming from one or two of the kinder girls who pitied her although not enough to make her their friend. It was Christmas, after all, and Gilda was her neighbour. Peace on earth and goodwill to all men.

She rooted out the box of unused cards and selected a snow scene (nicely appropriate) for Gilda, writing inside With best wishes from Jo, Marcus and Sean. Then she addressed the envelope to Mrs G. Iceton & Miss R. Iceton, pushed the card inside, sealed it down and propped it against the one she had written a couple of weeks before for Maisie and Fred.

It was still snowing hard, so before leaving the house she wrapped the two envelopes inside a plastic bag to keep them dry. The snow on the drive was pristine except for Sh.e.l.ley's footprints, which had already been partially obscured. Strange how heavy snowfall brought its own special intensity to everything, that special hush, the acute brightness, in spite of poor visibility and a leaden sky. She avoided Sh.e.l.ley's tracks, preferring to scrunch into the virgin snow, sinking almost to her ankles at every step before the compressed snow beneath her feet brought her up short. If this went on they would need Mr Tyson with his snowplough, never mind a four-wheel drive.

Even after a heavy snowfall The Old Forge did not manage to look picturesque. Gilda had been in residence for nearly a year now, but there had been no sign of any improvements. No builder's vans parked outside or planning permission notices tied to the gate. Perhaps Gilda was doing it up herself, from the inside out.

Either Jo's approach had been observed or else coincidence was in play, because just as she reached the front door it was opened by Gilda's daughter. Sh.e.l.ley was certainly right about Rebecca Iceton she was extremely pretty. It must make Gilda so proud to have a daughter who had turned out like this.

'I brought your Christmas card,' Jo said, fumbling with her plastic bag, while the girl stood just inside the door, regarding her with an uncertainty which might have been no more than shyness. 'What do you think of this weather?' Jo groped for something suitable to fill the silence. She had to get her glove off in order to separate the two cards, and the glove was proving stubborn. 'Will you be out sledging, later on?'

'I don't have a sledge.'

'We've got at least two,' Jo said. 'I'm sure Sean will be out later when he gets up. I'll tell him to call for you, if you like.'

'Thank you.' The girl continued to look uncomfortable. Jo wondered if she was remembering their first encounter in the lane; or perhaps Gilda had actually instructed her to steer clear of the strange woman who lived at The Hideaway. When she handed the card over, Rebecca said 'Thank you' again. As she was shutting the front door, Gilda's voice came from somewhere at the back of the house. 'Is there someone there, Becky?' Jo was still on the front step, taking a moment to replace her glove and reorganize the plastic bag around the Perrys' card, and in the stillness of the snowy hamlet she heard the girl's voice clearly through the closed door. 'It was the woman from across the road, bringing a Christmas card. Shall I open it? It's addressed to both of us although she's got my name wrong, as usual.' The voice was growing fainter as the speaker retreated down the hall and any reply was inaudible.

Jo froze on the spot. In what way was the name wrong? Why would Rebecca's name not be Iceton, the same as her mother's? It was not as if Gilda had kept her maiden name, which might have explained it. What other reason but that this was not Gilda's daughter at all? She set off almost at a run towards Gilda's perpetually open gate, nearly forgetting in her hurry that she still had the Perrys' card in her hand. She almost turned back towards The Hideaway, but stopped herself just in time. She must walk calmly and quietly to Throstles and deliver the other card. She must not let Gilda if she was watching realize that she had overheard.

And Gilda might be watching. Gilda was always watching she had been watching from her bedroom window that night when Jo had returned from Claife Station, and again from her bedroom window when the beck flooded except that one of those events could only be seen from the front of Gilda's house and the other from the back. No wonder she had been turning things over and over in her mind, because subconsciously she had known all along that Gilda was lying when she said that she just happened to be drawing her bedroom curtains that night. Gilda's bedroom was not at the front but at the back she had given herself away the night of the floods. Of course, Gilda could have moved from one bedroom to another, said the devil's advocate in her mind, but Jo was not really listening.

How would it work, exactly? Supposing you saw someone you really hated, had always hated and longed to get back at: someone who had something which you had not got but badly wanted. What would you have to do, if you had taken the ultimate revenge and stolen their baby? She swung the Perrys' gate open so violently that snow sprayed off it in all directions, plastering itself against her jeans and cagoule, some of it dropping in icy dollops down her boots, but she scarcely noticed. You would have to pretend to everyone that the child was yours. It would be much easier to pull it off if you had money to take you to different places, plenty of cash to set yourself up with an instant kit of cot and pram and so on. Difficult to explain to friends and relations how this child had suddenly appeared in your life but if you didn't actually have that many close relatives ... or friends ... Gilda was an only child, and her parents had been getting on when they had her. They might have been dead by 1998. What about the husband she claimed to have had? (Ouch, the Perrys' letterbox was vicious.) Maybe the husband was just a figment of Gilda's imagination, or maybe the marriage had been short-lived, so that he was off the scene by the time she took Lauren.

'h.e.l.l-o-oo.' Maisie had been alerted by the snap of the letterbox and was standing on the step, waving aloft the envelope Jo had just delivered.

'h.e.l.lo, Maisie. Can't stop.' She had already made it to the gate. It was a bit rude, but she didn't look back. Provided you didn't look back, you would neither be turned into a pillar of salt, nor snared by Maisie's invitation to join her for a festive sherry.

But why call the child something different? Surely that just drew attention to the fact that she wasn't yours. It was because you would sooner or later need doc.u.ments. Children only had their birth certificate. You would have to apply for someone else's birth certificate, then come up with some plausible reason why the details didn't fit properly could you make that work, or was the whole thing just plain crazy?

By now she was pa.s.sing The Old Forge again. She forced herself not to look up at the place, concentrating instead on where she was putting her feet. The falling snow had softened the set of prints she had made coming the other way. The outlines were there, but the imprints left by the soles of her boots in the bottom of each hole were already gone. It would be impossible to get a car along the lane now.

When she opened her own front door, Sean was just coming downstairs. She took a deep breath. 'I've just dropped a card off with the neighbours,' she said as casually as she could. 'Becky at The Old Forge is home, but she can't go out sledging because she doesn't have a sledge. I guessed you'd be going out later, and we've got the wooden sledge and at least one of those cheap plastic ones in the garage, so I said you would call for her on your way out. I hope you don't mind.'

Sean didn't look exactly pleased, but he didn't argue. 'I want something to eat first' he said.

'Of course. You'll need something warm before you go out. What would you like? A bacon sandwich, maybe? I'll make some porridge, if you like.'

'A bacon sandwich, please.' He regarded her suspiciously, noticing the way her eyes looked glittery and overexcited although he supposed that might be because she had just been out in the cold.

Jo often took herself off somewhere else while he ate whatever food she had prepared, but today she hovered around in the kitchen, humming s.n.a.t.c.hes of a tune, opening and shutting cupboard doors in a vain search for nothing in particular. Sean regarded her warily, wolfing down his sandwich as quickly as he could. He would have taken it upstairs, but she had very pointedly put out a knife and table mat, along with the ketchup which was de rigueur for the consumption of bacon b.u.t.ties.

'You won't forget to call for Becky is that what you call her, Becky?'

'I won't forget.'

'You don't happen to know what her other name is?'

'Becky Iceton, I suppose.'

'No, it isn't Iceton; it's something else.'

'Oh.' Sean sounded disinterested.

She sat down at the table in the chair opposite him. Sean still had at least two or three mouthfuls of sandwich to deal with. He began to fiddle uneasily with the ketchup bottle.

'Sean, will you do something for me?'

He didn't make eye contact. 'What?'

'Will you find out what Becky's other name is? Just ask her casually don't make a big thing of it, and don't tell her that it's me who wants to know.'

Sean hesitated, uncomfortable beneath the weight of her full attention. 'OK. But what's the big deal?'

'It's not a big deal. It's just something I want to know. OK?'

'OK.' He stuffed the remaining lump of bread and bacon into his mouth and stood up to make his escape.

'You won't forget?'

His mouth was too full to attempt an answer. A trickle of ketchup was escaping from the corner of his mouth, like a cheap effect in a vampire movie. He flapped his hand up and down a couple of times in a gesture she was intended to read as, 'All right, calm down.'

Jo watched Sean cross the lane, dragging a sledge from each hand. The snow had eased now, as if in blocking the lane and turning the garden into a Fred Swan painting its work was done. As he was on the point of leaving she had called out casually, as if by way of an afterthought, 'Bring Lauren back when you're finished. I'll do some hot chocolate and mince pies.'

'Becky,' he said impatiently. 'Her name is Becky.'

'Yes, of course. I meant Becky.'

He didn't bring her back with him, of course. He had probably forgotten, or else she had declined. Jo did not bother to ask which. They had played out in the snow for more than two hours, and Sean needed to change out of his wet clothes before he was ready for the promised hot chocolate. When he reappeared, she only managed to contain herself for as long as it took to place his mug on the breakfast bar and put a couple of mince pies into the microwave. 'Did you find out what Becky's last name is?'

'Yeah. It's Ford.'

'She didn't ask why you wanted to know?'

'No.' Sean's voice was contemptuous. 'I said, like it was just conversation, that I was glad I wasn't at the very beginning or the very end of the alphabet, because that way you're never first or last when you get called out to do stuff at school, and she said she wasn't at the very beginning either. Then I said, I'm H for Handley, and she said she's F for Ford.'

'That was clever.' He had just gone up several notches in her estimation.

'I'm not a complete amateur. So why do you want to know?'

Jo was ready for the question and embarked on a convoluted, but entirely untrue story about Gilda's having been married to someone who might have been an old school friend of someone else, but not wanting to ask a direct question in case she put her foot in it. She could see that this was working just as she had intended, with Sean obviously wishing he had never asked, and breaking in at the first possible opportunity to say, 'Yeah whatever.'

She left him in the kitchen finishing his hot chocolate. She had not been idle during his absence. If Sh.e.l.ley's father had begun his family researches via the computer, that must mean there was a way of accessing people's birth certificates. She had found a site where, by registering herself and paying a fee by credit card, she could search the official indices of births, deaths and marriages online. You could not see an actual birth certificate without applying by post, but by looking up Lauren's entry, she had established that the basic information shown in the index included mothers' maiden names. Now all she had to do was check the birth of Rebecca Ford.

Her hands shook as she brought up the site and keyed in her search. There were two pages of Rebecca Fords, but none of them had a mother whose maiden name had been Stafford. She kept staring at the screen, going back from one page to another to double-check. And all the time the blood pounded in her head, making her feel giddy, setting up a pain behind her eyes. A combination of shock and rage coursed through her. She had long suspected that Gilda's so-called daughter was one and the same as her own, but it was a very different thing to have proof of it.

And now she had her proof, what next? Should she ring the police? It was a Sunday afternoon and they were cut off by the snow. What would happen if she told the police? She knew enough about red tape not to imagine that a friendly constable would simply take her word for it, tell Lauren to pack her bags and move across to The Hideaway. Any delay at all would afford Gilda the opportunity to make a run for it, taking Lauren with her. They could be out of the country within hours.

Alternatively, the authorities might arrange to take Lauren into care while they made up their minds about whose daughter she was. She thought of Ma and Pa Allisson, who were probably dead by now. Foster-parents, or a children's home. She thought of Lauren, with her boarding-school accent and nice clothes, thrown into a lion's den shared with the kids of criminals, drug addicts and various other inadequates. She remembered the smell of cabbage and wee in the hall, the scuffed furniture in common rooms decorated with posters of pop stars and cartoon characters, always torn at the edges and missing their Blu-tack from one corner. The bits of last year's tinsel trapped under yellowing Sellotape in the corners near the ceiling, faded duvet covers on the beds with washed-out Barbie dolls or Ninja Turtles on them things which people thought kids liked, but which you would never have chosen for yourself. None of this must be allowed to happen.

There must be some other way. She could not simply spirit Lauren away as Gilda had done, so many years ago. Apart from anything else, the girl would not come with her. The prospect of Lauren rejecting her was akin to having a bucket of icy water tipped over her head but Lauren had grown up believing she was Gilda's daughter and that her name was Rebecca. What would her reaction be when she found out the truth? Would she want to stay with Gilda? Well, that wasn't an option, because Gilda would go to prison, of course ... but how would Lauren take that? Would she blame Jo for Gilda's incarceration? Children did not invariably react in the most logical of ways.

It probably wasn't a bed of roses having Gilda for a mother. Jo knew what it was like, being trailed everywhere by someone wearing a mustard-coloured number from a jumble sale, with a purple chiffon scarf wrapped around their head. Having a mother who was persistently out of touch with the way the rest of the world worked, but bridled at any suggestion of falling in line. Then again, what sort of alternative to Gilda would Lauren see in her someone she only knew as the weird woman who had jumped out at her one day in the lane?

And there was her schooling she and Marcus could not afford school fees. Lauren would have to attend the local comp, like Sean. She might like having a stepbrother they had not exactly been the best of friends so far, but at least they'd been out sledging together that surely counted for something.

She remembered the various bargains she had tried to strike with G.o.d. She wanted what was best for Lauren. She wanted Lauren to be safe, well and happy: those things were more important than anything else. If she knew that Lauren was all those things, wasn't that better than actively making her unhappy? It was not as if she knew whether Lauren was happy or not. But if she was happy, and being forced to return to her natural mother would make her less so ...

No, no, no. That would mean Gilda had won. A person should not be allowed to profit from their crime that could not possibly be right. From somewhere at the back of her mind a memory of a social worker emerged, a woman having a bad hair day, pontificating on television: 'When making a custody decision, the interests of the child are paramount.' Suppose they decided that Lauren should stay with Gilda, irrespective of her crime. Would Gilda even get a custodial sentence? Only the other day a man had been given a suspended sentence for poisoning his ex-wife as if permanently disabling her in the process was a matter of small account. These days the courts seemed capable of anything. No doubt the usual psychiatrist would be wheeled in to explain that it wasn't really Gilda's fault she'd had a tough time as a kid, which meant that she had been temporarily suffering from some kind of compulsive disorder and was now full of genuine remorse for what she had done. Rather than punishing her, a judge was just as likely to decide that since Gilda had taken good care of Lauren, it was a first offence and she posed no obvious threat to any other children, a bit of litter-picking on Sat.u.r.day afternoons for the next six months by way of community service would put everything right.

Jo thought about the cuddly dog waiting patiently on the spare-room bed. She pictured baby Lauren in her pyjamas, still pink from the bath, as she was carried upstairs and laid sleeping in her cot. Tears splashed on to the desk, narrowly missing the keyboard. She had never quite managed a happy ending for herself, but perhaps she could engineer one for Lauren. They would have to let Lauren decide. It must be done between themselves no police, no social services, no tawdry children's homes, or well-meaning foster-parents. Lauren should not suffer as she had done. Sometimes, if you really love someone, you have to let them go.

She went upstairs to change her clothes. She would have to put her big coat and wellingtons on top, but she wanted to look smart for the moment when Lauren understood that she was looking at her real mother. It took her some time to decide, practicalities weighing heavily in favour of most other considerations, so that she eventually ended up wearing her best jeans and a cheerful multicoloured sweater, bought on a visit to Bowness three years before and hardly worn since.

An early dusk was falling. When she opened the front door she was immediately aware of that heightened quiet brought by the snow. The temperature was already well below freezing, and the snow creaked in protest as it compressed beneath her boots. There was a light on above the front door of The Old Forge, just as if she was expected. And all the time that sense that this could not really be happening.

It was Gilda who answered the door on this occasion.

'I need to talk to you. Can I come in?'

'Of course,' Gilda said, stepping back in a stance of invitation, although her expression was wary. Jo dragged off her boots and stood them upright on the front step before following Gilda along the hall, which was dimly lit with a single energy-saver and had a roll of carpet lying along one side of it, which had to be stepped over in order to access the sitting room at the back of the house. There was a fire blazing in the grate, but to Jo's eyes this was about the only cheerful thing in the room, which suggested not so much someone's living accommodation, as an abandoned stage set into which disparate props from half a dozen other plays had been randomly dumped for storage.

'Sit down.' Gilda indicated a chair from which she had removed a copy of a TV guide in pa.s.sing. Jo sat. She was half disappointed and half relieved not to find Lauren in the room. Gilda tossed the TV guide on to a miscellanea of magazines and newspapers which stood several feet high on top of what might have been an old-fashioned needlework box, then lowered herself into the chair she had obviously been occupying before her visitor's arrival, so that she faced Jo across the hearth rug.

Now that she was here, Jo found that it was not easy to know how to begin. She had effected no rehearsals, simply hoping that the right words would come when she needed them which they did not. She cast about the room helplessly for a moment until her attention fell on a life-size stone cat which was sitting on the hearth.

Gilda saw what she was looking at. 'We call him Timmy,' she said. 'Becky would like a real cat, but cat hair and I don't get on.'