It wasn’t until after they had eaten supper and were sitting round the fire nursing their coffee that Abi mentioned Kier’s visit that morning.

‘He let himself in through the conservatory. If Justin hadn’t still been here I don’t know what I would have done – ’ She broke off mid-sentence, wishing she could bite off her tongue as she saw Cal’s look of anguish.

‘He only came to borrow some books, Mat,’ Cal said quickly.

Abi saw the fury on Mat’s face in astonishment. ‘You didn’t think to mention the fact that he had been here?’ He was addressing his wife.

She shook her head. ‘Why? When I know how much it upsets you.’

‘You know I have forbidden him to come anywhere near the house!’

‘It’s as much his house as yours, Mat,’ Cal said quietly. ‘Your grandfather left it to the three of you equally.’

‘And he chose not to take up his share. This is my home and I will not have him set foot under my roof!’ Mat stood up. ‘Has he been here before?’

‘You know he has.’

‘I mean recently. Tell me, Cal!’ They seemed to have forgotten that Abi was there. Thiz came and sat beside her uneasily, leaning against her legs and she lowered her hand to fondle the dog’s ears. She glanced down. Her hands were warming up. Instinctively she was seeking out the animal’s aching shoulders where arthritis was beginning to make its mark. She let her hand rest where it was for a moment with a small silent prayer. No-one noticed save the dog, who looked up at her with a small moan of pleasure.

‘He’s been here once or twice. He’s never stayed for more than a few minutes. He takes one or two books, and he’s always brought them back.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Mat turned away, his voice suddenly quiet.

‘You know why, Mat. Because I don’t want scenes like this. He’s every right to come here. You know that as well as I do. He does no harm. He touches nothing except the books. And they are as good as his. You know your grandfather meant them for him.’

‘And what does he do with them?’

Cal shook her head. She went over to her husband and kissed his cheek tenderly. ‘He reads them, you ninny.’

There was a moment of silence, then Mat shook her off and headed for the door. Banging it behind him they heard his steps running up the stairs.

‘Sorry,’ Cal said after a few seconds. ‘You didn’t need to see all that.’

‘It was my fault,’ Abi said sorrowfully. ‘It’s me that should be sorry. I knew you didn’t want me to mention him. It just came out.’

‘Mat’s not rational when it comes to Justin. I don’t suppose he ever will be now. It goes back a long way. Forget it happened. We’ll all be back to normal tomorrow morning.’

‘What does Justin do, Cal?’ Abi asked. Withdrawing her hand from the dog’s back, she picked up her coffee mug again.

Cal hesitated. ‘He writes books. He’s a historian.’

Abi smiled tentatively. ‘That doesn’t sound so bad.’

‘No.’ Cal sounded bleak.

‘Does he live near here?’

Cal shrugged. ‘I don’t know where he lives, Abi. He’s never told us.’

Abi knelt for a long time in prayer that night when at last she went upstairs. A hazy moon was hanging low in the sky as she stood up at last and went over to look out of the window. The garden was misty; she could make out little detail beyond the dim silhouettes of the trees. Somewhere an owl called, a sharp urgent shattering of the silence, answered from a long way away by a wavering hoot. She pushed open the casement and leaned out on her elbows. It was cold outside and smelled of dead leaves and wet earth. The smoke from the house chimneys wreathed around the rooftops, wafting the incense of burning oak and apple into the air. ‘Was it you, up there in the hills?’ she whispered again. ‘Were you here? Did you know Mora?’

There was no answer. Turning away from the window at last she pulled it shut and went over to the drawer where she kept the stone. She had tucked it away before supper but now she brought it out again and unwrapped it on the bed. It lay there, an inert lump of rock with its crystal faces dim. She laid her hand on it gently. Nothing.

‘Mummy?’ She whispered the word into the quiet room, lit only by the dull moonlight at the window and the bedside lamp with its aged ivory shade. ‘Mummy, are you there? I need to talk to you.’

Again there was no response. She picked up the stone and held it in her hands. ‘Why aren’t you working?’ She carried it over to the window and held it up to the moonlight, angling it back and forth to catch the pale gleam on its surface. With a sigh she left it on the window sill and finally climbing into bed she switched off the lamp and lay there staring up at the ceiling.

‘Athena isn’t in today.’ Bella glanced up from her magazine as Abi went into the shop. ‘Sorry.’

‘Do you know where I could find her?’ Abi was amazed at the lurch of disappointment she felt at the news. She had counted on speaking to the woman again. Her combination of certainty and doubt, of knowledge and ignorance and reassuring experience of life suited Abi’s mood perfectly.

Bella shrugged. ‘I don’t know if I should tell you.’ She looked anxious suddenly.

‘Her phone number then?’

Athena sounded as though she had just woken up. With a groan she gave Abi the address. The flat was only minutes away, reached by an iron spiral staircase which led up out of one of the attractive little courtyards lined with small shops, which lie behind the high street. On the inner corner of every other step there was a plant pot. Athena opened the door dressed in an exotic black housecoat decorated with scarlet dragons and led the way into her kitchen. It was small and chaotic. Abi liked it immediately. Heavy greeny-blue pottery, plants, jars of herbs, a crystal ceiling chime, a lump of wood for a breadboard, still with her breakfast loaf, seedy, crumbly and smeared with Somerset honey. It was exactly the sort of kitchen she would have expected this woman to have.

Hitching herself onto a stool at the breakfast bar she watched as Athena brewed fresh coffee. ‘I’m sorry to come so early.’ It was nearly eleven. ‘But I had to talk to you. The crystal still isn’t working, so maybe you’re right and it is all imagination. And I know you said I should rely on myself now, and not the crystal anyway, but I’m obviously not working either. Nothing is happening, and I have to know. Did he kill Mora? I haven’t slept all night.’

Athena grimaced. She reached onto the counter for a pack of cigarettes and shook one out. ‘Sorry, I know it doesn’t go with the image, but I can’t think straight until I’ve had one.’ She struck a match and lit up, inhaling deeply. Then she shook her head, eyes closed. ‘Abi, dear, don’t you think it would be more sensible to worry about real people and real things?’

Abi’s mouth fell open. ‘I’m sorry.’ She felt ridiculously chastened. ‘But I thought you understood.’

‘I do understand. All this crap is too beguiling, isn’t it? Romantic. Wonderful. It seduces you away from the real world. Then you turn back and find the real world has moved on and passed you by. That’s Glastonbury for you all over. Bloody Avalon!’

Abi was silent. ‘What’s wrong, Athena?’ she said at last.

‘Someone died.’ Athena was staring out of the window. A basket of pink pelargoniums hung there, from a brass hook.

Abi sighed. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She watched as Athena poured the coffee and hauled herself onto a stool next to her. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she asked at last.

‘That’s your job, isn’t it. Talking to the bereaved.’

‘It was part of it, yes.’

‘Do you still believe in it all? Heaven, I mean. Now you’ve seen the poor buggers hanging around in the ether acting out their lives again and again and again!’ Athena took another drag on the cigarette.

Abi put her hands around her mug, warming them. ‘It’s something I have been thinking about a lot. My faith has had to change over the last few months. I haven’t lost it.’ She hesitated. ‘At least, I don’t think so. But I am having to adapt.’

‘How bloody convenient!’

Abi bit her lip. ‘I don’t think it’s just convenient,’ she said after a moment. ‘It’s taken a lot of heart searching. I’m not there yet.’ She took a sip from her mug.

‘Tim. That’s who died. My husband. My ex,’ Athena said after another long pause. ‘Cancer.’

‘You still loved him?’ Abi said cautiously.

‘I suppose I must have.’

‘That’s hard.’

Athena nodded. She sniffed. ‘I can feel him here. In the flat. Through there in the living room. Every time I go in there I can see him sitting at the clavichord; I never knew why he didn’t take it with him, he was the one who played it. I’ve never even tried. Not after he went. I always thought he would come back for it, but he never did.’ She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, slid from her stool and went over to the kettle. ‘This coffee’s cold.’ She flicked the switch. ‘He loved that thing.’

‘Would you like me to say a prayer?’ Abi asked cautiously. She gave a half-smile and shook her head. ‘It’s what I do. Sorry. Perhaps not.’

‘Say one in there if you want.’ Athena indicated a door across the narrow passageway opposite the kitchen. ‘I’ll stay here if you don’t mind. Abi, the goddess thing. I don’t think I ever really believed it. I tried to. I enjoyed all their rituals and stuff to start with, or most of them,’ she said, grinning. ‘But then I started to have problems with it all. For instance, I could never bring myself to sit on the egg-stone! Did you see it, the Tor Bur behind the abbots’ kitchen in the abbey grounds? Someone has left it there at the foot of the wall and so many legends have built up round it. There is a depression in it which could look as though it was made to hold your crystal! Don’t even ask what they use it for. It would really upset your vicarly susceptibilities. I had swallowed the whole “this is the authentic religion of the British Isles, it is as ancient as time itself” thing for a while, but it wasn’t. I began to feel a shallowness. It was all made up. Part of the feminist movement. It had no substance. They wanted it to be real so badly, and who knows, perhaps I’m wrong and it is, but it just didn’t do it for me.’