Jo shivered violently. “Sam! That’s horrible! What are you saying?”

“People are not reborn without a purpose, Jo. They return to progress or to expiate their sins.”

“Rubbish, man!” Jim Paxman gave Sam a look of undisguised dislike. “I have never heard such arrant nonsense. If this is an echo from the past, then that is all it is, an echo. With no more meaning or purpose than the accidental replaying of an old record. This woman is in some way acting as an instrument, a…a…” He groped for the right word.

“A medium?” Wendy put in thoughtfully.

“If you like, but that has psychic connotations which I don’t accept. We are not dealing with ectoplasm or crystal balls here. That is not what we are talking about at all.”

“Aren’t we?” Nick said.

Everyone looked at him. There was an expectant silence.

Behind them Sarah pushed open the door. On her tray were eight cups of coffee.


***

Sam and Nick both went back to Cornwall Gardens with Jo. They were all silent in the taxi, and once they were in the apartment Nick went straight to the cabinet in search of the bottle of Scotch.

Jo threw herself down on the sofa. “I feel as if I’ve been through a mental mincer,” she said. She put her arm across her eyes. “Isn’t it funny? I thought today would prove something-either that I’m hallucinating or inventing things or that it is all real and I am the reincarnation of Matilda de Braose, and yet, with all that talk and all that argument and all those experts, it has proved nothing. In fact, now it is worse. All they have done is make me terribly aware of the fact that there are a whole lot more theories to account for my condition than I had ever thought of and I am more muddled than ever.”

“Forget it all, Jo.” Nick sat down near her with a sigh. “Why the hell should you turn yourself into a specimen under a microscope for that lot? Or me, for that matter.” He frowned. “We know what we believe. That is what is important.”

“And what do we believe?” Sam put in.

“That’s the point!” Jo sat up. The Scotch had brought the color back to her cheeks. “I don’t know anymore. Except that it’s not just me. We are all three involved. We are, aren’t we?” She looked from one to the other.

“Perhaps.” Sam walked out onto the balcony and stood looking down at the square. A group of children were playing on the grass behind the railings with a huge striped plastic ball. He turned to lean on the balustrade. “We must all experience with an open mind and record meticulously and with unbiased comment what happens. Particularly you, Jo, if you still intend to write a book on all this. The book will be of enormous scientific-or occult or historical or linguistic or whatever-significance. Let those experts of Bennet’s with their analytical minds tear that apart. From now on we’ll leave them out of it. We don’t need them. The man himself is, of course, a fool. You do realize that, don’t you? For all his expensive offices and the panoply of medical props he is not a qualified psychiatrist.”

Nick raised an eyebrow. “He couldn’t call himself doctor, surely, if he weren’t qualified.”

“He qualified as a physician in Vienna just after the war, but he never practiced as far as I can see, either in general practice or as a specialist, until he came to England, when he did a minimal training in hypnotherapy and launched himself as an expert on some decidedly fringe activities.”

Nick gave a lazy smile. “It struck me he didn’t think much of you either.”

“Shut up, both of you.” Jo stood up. “Why don’t I get us all a salad. I want to think about something else for a change. My mind is so tired, so terribly tired of all this-” Her voice trembled slightly.

With a glance at Sam, Nick followed her into the kitchen. “Jo, what happened to me at Bennet’s?” he asked in an undertone. “Did I go into some sort of trance as well?”

She looked at him, astonished. “You?”

“Yes, me, Jo.” He glanced over his shoulder hurriedly. “I am beginning to think Sam may have given me some sort of posthypnotic suggestion-”

“Sam?” Jo stared. “You haven’t let Sam hypnotize you?”

“Now, who is taking my name in vain?” Sam had brought the bottle of Scotch with him into the kitchen.

“No one.” Jo glanced at him uncomfortably. She turned hastily to the refrigerator and took out a plate of cold meats and a bowl of salad, then she reached into the door for a bottle of wine. “Sam, the corkscrew is in the drawer behind you. Leave my Scotch alone and pour us all some wine instead, will you? When did you say your plane was tomorrow, Nick?” she went on hastily.

Nick was watching his brother expertly insert the tip of the corkscrew into the center of the cork. He was frowning.

“Eleven. I’m going to have to go as soon as we’ve eaten, Jo. There are things I must do at the office before I go back to the apartment to pack.”

Jo looked down at the bottle of olive oil in her hand. “You haven’t said how long you will be away,” she said. He must not know how lost she felt at the thought of his leaving.

“Ten days at least.” His voice was gentle.

“Ten days for Jo to sort out her affairs with Richard de Clare,” Sam put in as he poured out the three glasses of wine, meticulously stooping, his eye level with the worktop, to check that all contained identical amounts.

“Sam.” Jo glanced at Nick, suddenly terrified that the mention of the name would change him again, back to the frightening travesty of the Nick she knew. His face had hardened, but he was still Nick. The stranger was not there behind his eyes.

“She’s finished with de Clare,” Nick said after a moment. He picked up one of the glasses. “And de Clare knows it.”

“Knew it, Nick,” Jo said quickly. “It was all a long time ago. Here, take the salad through, and the bottle.”

Sam was watching her as she took the plates from the cabinet.

“You intend to follow this story through to the end, don’t you, Jo?” he said softly as the door swung closed behind Nick.

She straightened abruptly. “Don’t be absurd. You know damn well I’m not. And you know why.”

“I think you will. I don’t think you’ll be able to stop when the time comes.”

“Oh, believe me, I will, Sam.” Jo clenched her fists. “Do you think I will want to go on when John turns against them? I don’t want to know what happens then. Do you think I could bear to live through all that-the knowledge that Richard did not lift a finger to try to save her, for all his love. And William! William, after all their years of marriage, their children-William betrayed her!”

“She had betrayed William first,” Sam said sharply. “She had driven him too far.”

“He was a coward,” she retorted. “A bully and a coward.”

Sam flinched visibly beneath her scorn. “He paid for that last betrayal,” he said. “He paid. Dear God, how he wanted to make reparation. Don’t you think he wanted to return to save her?”

Nick pushed open the kitchen door behind them. “Come on, you two, what’s happened to supper?”

“No!” Jo did not even hear him. “No, I don’t think he did. He didn’t give tuppence for anything but his own skin. Don’t forget, he let his own son die too. His eldest son!”

Sam narrowed his eyes. “His son! Will wasn’t his son. Will was the bastard of that weak fool, de Clare. An incestuous bastard!”

“Sam!” Nick shouted. “Stop it!”

Sam ignored him. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Jo’s face. “Do you know who little Matilda de Clare married? No, not Reginald. Not good, honest, upright Reginald, so like his father. No, you let her marry Will! You let her marry her own brother!”

“No!” shouted Jo. “No, that’s a lie. Will was William’s true-born son.”

“I don’t believe you. Matilda was a whore. She deserved to die the way she did.”

“Sam, shut up!” Nick glared at his brother. “You bastard! Leave it alone, do you hear?”

Suddenly Sam smiled. “Of course. I’m sorry. How tactless of me.” He was breathing hard. “Yes, why don’t we have supper! It can’t matter now, anyway, can it, what happened eight hundred years ago?”

It was a quiet meal. After leaving most of her food untouched, Jo pushed her plate aside and toyed instead with the glass of wine. It was only just after eight when Nick stood up.

“I must go, Jo.” He took her hands as she rose too. “Take care, won’t you.”

She gave a watery smile. “Of course. Don’t worry about me.”

“If you want to speak to me, Jim will have the phone number in the office. And I’ll be in touch with them just as soon as I hit New York. Do you want me to call you?”

She shook her head. “Forget me for ten days, Nick. Concentrate on your work. I’ll see you when you get back.”

He looked at her hard for a few moments, his blue eyes intense, then he kissed her gently on the forehead. “Sam will be here to take care of you, don’t forget, if you need him.”

Sam was still seated. He refilled his glass slowly, watching as Jo raised her arms suddenly and threw them around Nick’s neck.

He frowned. “I’ll see you back at the apartment later, Nick,” he said.

“You’re not coming with me now?” Nick disengaged himself gently. There was a hint of caution in his tone as he looked down at his brother.

“There are one or two things I want to say to Jo first.”

“ No! ” There was no reason for Jo’s involuntary response; its violence surprised even her. “I mean, not now, Sam, please. I am so tired. I’d really rather be on my own this evening, if you don’t mind.”

“I won’t keep you long.” Sam did not move.

Nick put his hands on the back of Sam’s chair. “Come on, you can see Jo wants us both to go.”

“She’ll change her mind.” Sam glanced up at Jo with a smile. “A cup of coffee, then I’ll leave if you still want me to. I promise.”