But in at least one of the books in her bag there was a very convincing argument that ghosts and spirits were real entities.

The darkness when it came was total. Her step faltered – a logical reaction to sudden blindness which would pass as soon as her night sight came back. She knew the path was clear; she had been able to see twenty feet in front of her a moment before, so why had she stopped? Why was she convinced that there was someone standing there on the path immediately in front of her? Why did she have this terrible urge to turn and run back the way she had come?

‘Come on, Anne!’ Like her sister she was prone to addressing herself out loud. ‘Get a move on. Your feet are getting cold!’ The sound of her voice seemed shocking in the silence; an intrusion. ‘You’ll be singing Onward Christian Soldiers in a minute,’ she went on conversationally. ‘Go on, you bastard.’ She was no longer addressing herself. ‘If you’re out there, show yourself, whoever you are.’

This was ludicrous. There was no one there. No one at all. She gritted her teeth and walked on, concentrating grimly on the wild beauty of the night. She could understand Kate’s enchantment with this place. The silence, the clean pure air which came, she supposed, straight from the arctic ice, the occasional glimpses before the moon had gone, of glittering, still water through the trees. She pictured the cottage where Kate was by now probably tucked up cosily in bed. A warm stove, oak beams, pretty, chintzy curtains, an old bed with a soft feather mattress and an old- fashioned patchwork quilt. When she arrived there would be coffee and food and whisky of course, and a long night of gossip with their toes tucked up near the fire -

She snapped suddenly out of her reverie. In the distance she could hear the sound of galloping hooves. It was coming closer. The creak of leather, the hiss of breath through a horse’s nostrils. She flung herself back off the path, feeling the ground shake beneath the rider as he hurtled up the track and then he was gone. Shocked, she stared back the way she had come. She had seen nothing. How could anyone ride at that speed in the dark? And why? What was so important?

With a heavy sense of foreboding she slithered back onto the track, renewing her grip on her bag, aware suddenly of a new smell in the fresh coldness of the air. A foul, acrid smell. The smell of burning.

She stood for a moment looking at the still smouldering barn, feeling the heat striking out from the black stinking ashes, then she walked slowly towards the farmhouse and banged on the door.

For a long time nothing happened. No lights came on. There was no sound. She was beginning to panic that there was no one there when at last she heard the sound of a door opening somewhere inside.

‘Who is it?’ A man’s voice sounded strangely hollow from behind the door.

‘Hi. I’m sorry to arrive so late. My car couldn’t make it down the track. I’m Anne Kennedy. Kate’s sister.’ It felt faintly ridiculous, speaking to a bolted door. She wished they would hurry up and open it. There was something not right out here, something frightening in the air. ‘Please. May I come in?’ She tried to keep the panic out of her voice.

‘Wait.’ The voice was curt. Almost rude.

Anne stared at the door in disbelief. It had not crossed her mind that they might not let her in. She glanced behind her at the dull white sheen which was a snow-covered lawn.

‘Anne? Is that you?’ Suddenly Kate’s voice came from behind the door. The flap of the letter box rose and a torch shone out into the darkness. ‘Crouch down, so I can see your face.’

‘For God’s sake, Kate. Of course it’s me. I sincerely wish it wasn’t!’ The last of her stamina was going. Anne bent over and stared into the letter box. ‘What is the matter with you all?’

‘It’s her. Let her in.’ She heard the muffled words as the letter- box sprang shut followed at once by the sound of bolts being drawn back.

‘Quickly. Come in.’ Kate pulled her over the threshold into a darkened hall. Anne was dimly aware of a guttering candle on a saucer as someone closed the door behind her and shot the bolts across once more, then she was ushered into a candlelit living room. It was warm, and smelled of wonderful cooking and it was full of people.

She stared round, doing a double take. ‘It’s like the hospital at Scutari,’ she blurted out. ‘Kate, love, what’s been happening?’

A woman, wearing a sling and with a black eye lay on the sofa; a girl, wrapped in rugs was lying on pillows in the corner; a man, his bandaged foot propped up on a stool sat beside the fire. Behind her the two men – one man and a boy, she corrected herself as she glanced at them – who had opened the door with Kate were standing staring at her as if she had just appeared from Mars. Two other people and a girl stood nearby, all looking at her. ‘What is happening here? What’s wrong?’

‘Oh, Anne!’ Kate threw herself into her arms. ‘I’ve never been so pleased to see anyone in my life!’

‘The dea ex machina, come to rescue us, I presume.’ The words came from the man with the injured foot.

Anne stared at him blankly then she turned to Kate. ‘You’d better explain,’ she said.

LVII

He rode fast, leaning forward on his horse’s neck, the brooch, the native brooch which had pinned her gown, holding his own cloak now against the wind. The prince of the Trinovantes had paid the price and gone to his gods and the hell-cat woman with him, with her curses and her hate. Well, let her curse. Who would ever know what had happened here today? There were no witnesses, no survivors. Her sister, simple docile girl that she was, would believe him when he told her Claudia had fled with her lover to his brothers in the west. She would be shocked, but she would believe him. And she would understand the need for divorce. He smiled as he rode, and raised his hand to flog his horse on faster as it scaled the rise in the track, its hooves throwing up clouds of dust. He had already decided that he would remarry. Her sister was much like her to look at, much younger and more biddable by far. She could take over his household and raise his son; provide him with more sons if she did her duty well. And he would see to it that the prince’s tribe came no more to Colonia Claudia Victricensis. They incubated sedition and plotted with the Iceni against Rome. A burning straw would ignite the mood against their overlords, but it would not be his straw; no uprising would be of his instigation. Nor hers. Claudia. The woman he had treated as a goddess. No one would ever know what had occurred here today. She would never tell; she had taken her betrayal and her fury with her to her muddy, inglorious death.

‘There are ten people in this house.’ Roger stood with his back to the fire, looking down at the others as they sat round him. Allie still had not spoken. She was asleep on a pile of cushions and pillows in the corner and no one suggested waking her. Sue was sitting beside her, holding her hand, her eyes closing as she nodded sleepily in the warmth of the room. ‘I cannot believe that we can’t vanquish whatever is threatening us here tonight. Anne. You are, I gather, the expert,’ he bowed in her direction. ‘And we seem to be agreed that our enemy is not human. Can I ask you to take the floor and tell us what the hell to do!’ He moved to his chair and sank into it with a groan.

Anne felt a thousand times better than she had walking on her own through the woods, but now that the full horror of the situation had been explained to her even a bowl of hot soup had not managed to dispel the chill which had settled in her stomach. She shook her head. ‘I’m a psychologist, not a psychic. I know very little about ghosts. As far as I know I’ve never seen one.’ Then what or who was the mysterious horseman who had thundered past her on the track? No one in the house knew anything about him.

‘You must help Allie, Anne,’ Kate put in from her seat on the floor. She was leaning against the side of Greg’s chair, gazing into the embers. His hand was resting lightly on her shoulder.

‘I think she’s possessed.’ Greg said quietly. ‘Her strength, her voice, her actions. None of them belong to Alison.’

‘Greg. Don’t!’ Diana’s voice was anguished. She glanced across at the two girls. Sue’s head had fallen forward; her grip on Alison’s hand had loosened and her fingers were slack. She was dozing. Alison moved her head restlessly from side to side and then lay still again. Her eyes were not properly closed. Beneath the half-open lids the whites showed as pale slits.

Anne bit her lip. They were all looking at her and she didn’t know what the hell to say. ‘Has she been seen by a doctor recently?’ she asked at last. ‘There are quite a few conditions which could fit some of what has happened to her. For instance, has she had a head injury in the last few months? Even quite a mild knock could do it.’ She looked from Diana to Roger and back. Diana shook her head. ‘And there has been no organic damage at any time as far as you know? Cysts, lesions, tumours, anything like that? Has she complained of headaches?’

‘Yes, she has.’ Patrick and Greg spoke simultaneously.

‘But you’re on the wrong track there,’ Greg went on. ‘Quite wrong.’

‘Not necessarily.’ Anne looked at him seriously. ‘There could be a medical reason for her suffering these strange blackouts and we need to rule them out if we can.’ Again she looked at Diana. ‘Is there any family history of schizophrenia or genetic disorders as far as you know?’

Diana shook her head.

‘And there is no possibility that she is taking drugs?’

‘None at all.’ Diana pressed her hands to her cheeks. ‘I was a nurse, Anne. Do you think I haven’t thought of these things? Besides, Allie is not the only one to have had strange experiences.’