Jo glanced toward the door. Her lips had gone dry. She took a deep breath. “Who was the man in here as I came round?”

Ceecliff had turned away, patting her injured lampshade with a proprietorial hand. “There was no one else in here, Jo. Only Nick and I.”

Jo crossed to the door, steadying herself with her hand on the back of a chair. Swiftly she closed it. Leaning against it, she looked at Ceecliff.

“Someone tried to strangle me this afternoon.”

Her grandmother pursed her lips. “Jo, dear-”

“I am not imagining it. Out there in the conservatory. Nick was massaging my shoulders. Then-” She shrugged wildly. “Someone tried to kill me!”

“Nick was the only person there, Jo.” Ceecliff came toward her slowly and put her hands on Jo’s arms. “Are you accusing Nick?” She was scandalized.

“No, of course not.” Jo’s voice had fallen to a whisper.

“Did you tell David all this?”

“I said my neck hurt.” Jo shook her head.

“I think he would have been able to tell, Jo, if anyone had tried to kill you. There would have been bruises on your throat for one thing.” Ceecliff moved toward the sofa and sat down on the edge of it. “I think Nick was right to be worried about this hypnosis, Jo. You are too susceptible-”

Jo flung herself away from the door. “This has nothing to do with the hypnosis! I wasn’t imagining it! You would know if someone had tried to kill you!” She put her hands to her throat. “There was someone else there. Someone else, Ceecliff. It can’t have been Nick. He wouldn’t…He wouldn’t want to kill me. Besides, there was someone else in the room when I woke up. You must have seen him. You must! For God’s sake, he was standing right behind Nick!”

“Joey, there was no one there,” Ceecliff said gently. “If there had been, I would have seen him.”

“You think I’m imagining it?”

“I think you’re tired, emotionally upset, and what we as children used to call thunder-strung.” Ceecliff smiled.

She turned as Nick pushed open the door. He went straight to Jo, who had tensed nervously as he came into the room. “How are you?” he asked.

“I’m fine, thanks.” She forced herself to smile at him.

“But she is going to let you drive her back, Nick, after you’ve both had some tea,” Ceecliff said firmly. “She can come and pick up her car another time.”

Jo swallowed. Her eyes had gone automatically to Nick’s hands, resting on the back of the chair. They were firm, strong hands, tanned from sailing, slightly stained now, with lichen from the rain-soaked wood of the summerhouse door.

As if feeling her gaze on them, Nick slipped them into the pockets of his jeans. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. “I’ve never had a woman faint at my feet before. It was all very dramatic. And you still look very pale.”

Ceecliff stood up. “She’s fine,” she said firmly. “You know where the kitchen is, Nick? Go and put the kettle on for me, there’s a dear. I’ll be out in a minute.”

As he left the room, Jo caught her hand. “Don’t tell Nick what I said, will you? He’ll think it is something to do with the hypnosis too, and I’m not going to fight with him all the way back to London.”

Ceecliff smiled. “I shan’t tell him, Jo. But I think you should,” she said slowly. “I really think you should.”


***

The storm crackled viciously across Hyde Park, highlighting the lush green of the trees against the bruised sky. Sam stood looking out of the window of Nick’s apartment in South Audley Street, feeling the claustrophobia of London all around him. He sighed. If it weren’t for that keyhole glimpse of the park up the narrow street in front of the apartment, he would not be able to stay here. It calmed and restored the quiet sanity of self-perception. He spared a moment’s regretful thought for his high-ceilinged apartment in Edinburgh with its glorious view across the Queen’s Park toward the Salisbury Crags, then, turning from the window, he drew the curtains against the storm and switched on the light. After throwing himself down on the sofa, he picked up his third glass of Scotch and reached for the pile of books stacked on the coffee table.

The first that came to hand was A History of Wales by John Edward Lloyd, MA, volume two. After turning to the index, he began to look for William de Braose.


***

“What the hell is wrong, Jo?” Nick glanced across at her as he swung the car at last onto the M11. The windshield wipers were cutting great arcs in the wet carpets of rain that swept toward them off the road. For the second time, as he reached forward to insert a new cassette in place, he had noticed her shrink away from his hand. And she was obviously having trouble with her throat.

With an effort she smiled. “Sorry. I’m still feeling rather odd. My head is splitting.” She closed her eyes as the car filled with the bright cold notes of Vivaldi. Don’t talk. Don’t let him see you’re afraid. It did not happen. It was a hallucination-or imagination. Nick is no killer and the other…the face with the hard, angry blue eyes and the beard. It was not a face she knew. Not from this world, nor from that other time of wind and snow and spinning distances. It was not William, nor the young and handsome Richard. It was a double vision, a dream. Part of the dream where someone had tried to kill her. Something out of her own imagination, like the pain.

“The traffic is building.” Nick’s voice hung for a moment in the silence, coming from a long way away as the tape came to an end. He leaned forward and switched it off before it had a chance to start playing again. “You should have stayed with Celia. You’re worn out, you know.”

She forced her eyes open, realizing that the engine was idling. Cars were around them on every side; the end-of-weekend rush back to London, earlier than usual because of the bad weather, had brought the traffic to a standstill.

“You’ve been asleep.” He glanced across at her. “Do you feel any better?” The light in the sky was already fading.

Jo eased her position slightly in the seat. “I’ll be okay. I’m sorry I’m being such a nuisance. I can’t think what came over me.”

“That damn hypnosis came over you.” Nick eased the car forward a few yards behind the car in front and braked. His elbow out of the open window, he drummed his fingers in irritation on the roof above his head. “I hope this has finally convinced you, Jo, of the idiocy of persisting with this research. Sam must have spelled out the risks for you.”

Jo colored angrily. “What the devil has my fainting to do with the fact that I was hypnotized a couple of days ago? Oh, Nick, drop the subject, please!”

She hunched her shoulders defensively. How was it possible to feel so many conflicting emotions for the man sitting next to her? Love. Anger. Despair. And now fear. Real fear, which would not listen to the reason that told her it was groundless. She knew Nick had not tried to kill her. The thought was farcical. But if not his, then whose were the hands that had encircled her neck? And if they had been imaginary, then why had she imagined them? Perhaps he was right. Perhaps being hypnotized had some delayed effect. Some dangerous, delayed effect. She shuddered violently.

Half of her wanted to beg Nick to pull onto the hard shoulder and put his arms around her and hold her safe, but even as she glanced toward him she felt again that shiver of fear.

It was another hour before they turned into Cornwall Gardens. She had already extricated her key from her bag and was clutching it tightly in her hand as the car drew to a halt and she swung the door open. “Please, Nick, don’t come in.”

She almost threw herself onto the pavement. “I’m going to take an aspirin and go to bed. I’ll call you, okay?” She slammed the door and ran toward the steps, not looking to see if he followed. She had banged the front door shut behind her before he had levered himself out of the car.

Nick shrugged. He stood where he was in the middle of the road, his hand resting on the car’s roof, waiting until he saw the lights go on in the room behind the second-floor balcony doors, then he climbed back in and drove away. He was very worried.


***

Wrapped in her bathrobe, Jo pulled the heavy sash windows up. Outside, the night was very warm and still. Darkness had come early with the heavy cloud and there was an almost tropical humidity about the air. She could hear the sound of flamenco coming from the mews and, suddenly, a roar of laughter out of the dark.

After half drawing the curtains, she switched on her bedside light with a sigh and untied her bathrobe, slipping it from her bare shoulders.

The light was dim and the small antique mirror that stood on her low chest was on the other side of the room, but even from where she stood she could see. Her body was evenly tanned save for the slight bikini mark, but now there were other marks, marks that had not been there before. Her neck was swollen and covered with angry bruises. For a moment she could not move. She could not breathe. She stood transfixed, her eyes on the mirror, then she ran naked to the bathroom, dragging the main light-pull on, flooding the room with harsh cold light from the fluorescent strip in the ceiling. She grabbed her bath towel and frantically scrubbed at the condensation that still clung to the large mirror, then she looked at herself again. Her neck was violently bruised. She could even make out the individual fingermarks in the contusions on the front of her throat.

She stared at herself for a long time before walking slowly to the living room. Kneeling down beside the phone that still lay on the coffee table, she did not even realize she had memorized Carl Bennet’s number until she had dialed it.