She took the glass from him. “My philosophy too. Only I make my guests sit on hard stools, or the floor.” She gingerly lowered herself onto the sofa. “Are you sure you don’t mind my coming over?”

Pete walked over to the window. He threw up the lower sash and sat down on the white-painted window seat. “I’m glad you did. I needed some company. So, what’s new in Fulham?”

“I’m preparing for a new exhibition.”

“So soon?” He put his foot up on the seat and clasped his hands around his knee.

“Not so clever really. I had nearly enough material for two exhibitions anyway. This one is exciting though. It’s going to be in Paris. But I didn’t come to talk about that. Pete, I need your help.”

“You don’t need my help, Judy. But you’ll have it, for what it’s worth. I enjoyed writing up the last one, and the thought of a trip to Paris to write about the next is not entirely obnoxious to me.” He grinned. “I might even buy a picture myself this time.”

“I’m not talking about the exhibition!” Brushing aside his intended compliment, she jumped up restlessly and went to stand in front of his bookcase, staring up at the lines of titles. “I want you to…that is…” She turned awkwardly toward him. “You know Tim Heacham, don’t you?”

Pete concealed a smile in his hand. “Of course.”

“Did you know he was in love with Jo Clifford?”

“I had heard rumors to that effect, yes.”

“He doesn’t just fancy her, Pete. It is something much, much more…” For a moment Pete saw an almost painful sympathy in her eyes and he looked at her with renewed interest. Her short red hair was becomingly tousled, her dark-green shirt and her jeans well cut and for once paint-free. She exuded an air of gamine charm that did not quite conceal the determination which directed all her movements. His eyes rested on her broad, almost masculine hands with their neatly trimmed nails. Scarlet talons were more to his taste, but she certainly had something, some underlying current of sexuality that appealed to him enormously. He stood up and reached for her glass. “Let me get you another,” he said gently. “I take it you feel that I can help their romance along somehow.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Yes. And for a start you can tell the world what a mess Nick has made of his business affairs.”

Pete’s mouth fell open. “Hang on a minute. I had the impression that you were rather keen on Nick yourself.”

The green eyes clouded. “No longer. The reason he has been ignoring the office more and more is because he has been hypnotized too, like Jo. And in his previous existence he knew her before. And he hated her enough to kill her.” She took the refilled glass from him and gave him a knowing smile. “Surely you could use material like that, Pete, couldn’t you?”


***

Jo stood for several minutes after she had hung up the telephone, staring out of the window at the roof of the tower of Hay Church, almost hidden among the trees. She was numb.

“Finished, then, dear?” Margiad Griffiths popped her head around the door. “Supper will be on the table in fifteen minutes, if you were going to have a quick bath.”

Jo looked blankly at the bathrobe and sponge bag she had put down on one of the chairs. Slowly she picked them up. “I’ll pay you for the call,” she said huskily.

“Bad news, was it, dear?” Mrs. Griffiths came into the room properly. “That white, you are. Here.” She gave a conspiratorial smile. “Why don’t I give you a glass of sherry. That’ll perk you up a bit, so it will. You can take it upstairs with you.”

Gratefully Jo took the tiny thistle crystal glass of sweet sherry and made her way back upstairs. The bedroom door was still shut. She locked herself in the bathroom and, drawing the shower curtain around the bath, turned on the tepid water before she pulled off her mud-stained jeans and blouse and stepped under the shower attachment, letting the water stream over her face and breasts, soaking her hair until it turned to a jet curtain of wet silk on her back.

Supper was ten minutes late and Margiad Griffiths was flustered. “It’s the wine, see. I sent my Doreen up the road to get you some from the Swan, but I don’t know if it’s any good. My late husband, he knew about wine, but I don’t like the stuff myself!” She thrust the bottle at Nick shyly and then handed him the corkscrew.

Nick looked gravely at the label. “That’s very nice, thank you. Will you thank your daughter for going to so much trouble,” he said to her with a smile.

He grinned at Jo as their hostess withdrew. “Chambré it certainly is, after its voyage back from the Swan, wherever that is. The label says it was a good wine once. But it has been shaken to the point of shall we say sparkling, if not actually frothing.”

Jo managed to laugh. “The way I feel now, I don’t care how it comes as long as it’s wet and alcoholic.” She watched him draw the cork and gingerly sniff the neck of the bottle. “The food looks lovely,” she said soberly after a minute.

“And so is the wine, in spite of its adventures. Here’s to the intrepid Margiad-isn’t that a lovely name?” Nick took a large mouthful. “And here’s to you, Jo.” He met her eye, suddenly sobering.

Jo sat back in her chair. “There was a phone message waiting for me to call Bet Gunning this evening,” she said. Her gray-green eyes studied his face gravely. “I spoke to her just now.”

“Oh?” Nick picked up his knife and fork.

“She said she had lunch with you last week.”

Nick smiled. “Is that why she called? To tell you what happened?”

“What did happen, Nick?”

“She told me to keep away from you. She said I was ruining your career prospects and spoiling your literary style. She then offered herself to me as compensation. When I declined her kind suggestion she was a little upset. Though not enough, I should have thought, to report back to you. What was her version?”

Jo gave a small smile. “Much the same. Bet is nothing if not honest. Perhaps she wouldn’t have been if you had accepted her offer.” She took a tentative mouthful of lamb. “She also told me she thought you hated me.” She did not look up.

Nick said nothing for a moment.

“Hated me enough to want to kill me,” she went on, so quietly he thought for a moment he had not heard aright.

“Jo.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “Bet is a self-confessed troublemaker and bitch. She also had a vivid imagination. For God’s sake-” His expression turned to one of incredulity. “You don’t believe her?”

She shook off his fingers and put down her knife and fork. “No, of course not.”

She reached for the wine bottle and poured some more into her glass. “But you have been rather odd, Nick. You admitted it yourself.” Her hand was shaking as she looked up at him. She forced herself to smile.

He frowned. Then abruptly he stood up, pushing his chair back, his food hardly touched.

“Jo, we’ve got to have this out. I love you-” He gave her an embarrassed grin. “Not an easy thing for an Englishman to say in broad daylight, but, there, I’ve said it. I think I’ve loved you ever since I first met you.”

There was a moment’s tense silence as they both considered suddenly the deeper implications of what he had said. With a shiver Jo looked down at her plate. Her throat had constricted so tightly she could barely breathe.

“Then why did you go to Judy?” she whispered at last.

He groaned. “God knows! Because you told me to go to hell, I suppose.” He paused. “Because sometimes you make me so angry-”

“Angry enough to want to hurt me-” She looked up at him.

“No!” he replied explosively. “It is as if-” He paused in mid-sentence, staring out of the window. “It is as if there is something in my mind that closes down like a shutter. When it happens I don’t know what I’m doing for a while. That’s not an excuse, Jo. There is no excuse for what I did to you. It’s perhaps all the more frightening because it’s like that. I don’t understand it.” He frowned. “But it will not-cannot happen again.”

Jo ached suddenly to stand up with him and take him in her arms, but resolutely she sat still, staring down at her plate again. “Sit down, Nick, and eat your supper. Mrs. Griffiths will be so hurt if we don’t at least make the effort,” she said quietly. “I expect you’ve been overworking, what with the worry about Desco and everything,” she added, as matter-of-factly as she could. “That might explain it all.”

He sat down heavily opposite her. “It might, I suppose.” He gave a weary smile.

“Why did you come here, Nick?”

“To Wales?” He paused. “To see you. To be with you.”

“But why?” She clenched her fists in her lap, waiting for his reply.

“Because I was worried about you, I suppose,” he replied after a moment.

“I see.” She bit her lip. “And you’re still going back tomorrow?”

“I have to. I’m due to fly to New York on Wednesday and I’ve got an awful lot to do first. But I’ll wait and see how you are before I go. It worries me the way you are having these regressions spontaneously. Supposing there had been no one there. Supposing it had happened to you in the street, or driving, for God’s sake!”

“There is no reason it should happen again, Nick.” Jo gave up her attempt to eat and laid down her knife and fork. “I don’t think what I had today was a regression anyway. I just fainted-like I did at Ceecliff’s. As I told you, the doctor said it was probably something to do with the thunder we’ve been having so much. It happened before in a storm, remember? He thinks it’s an allergic reaction to electric force fields, or something.” She gave a little laugh. “He said I’d probably be the sort of person who pukes under pylons.”

Nick managed a smile. “But you didn’t tell them about the regressions, did you?”

She shook her head. “They’d have locked me up, Nick. And kept me in for a month for psychiatric tests. If anyone is going to do any tests on me, it’s going to be Carl Bennet.” She glanced up at him under her eyebrows. “Would you come with me, Nick, if I went back to him?”