the end, it took far longer than she had intended. ‘To me, this machine is just a glorified typewriter,’ Michael said, so she spent some time sorting out his files, teaching him to use search engines and surf the Internet. When they finished it was dark, and Michael declared it was too late for tea, offering her a drink instead, and a quick tour of the house, if she wanted. ‘So you can tell the village grapevine about all the redecorating we haven’t done.’ Even the master bedroom, Annie thought, looked unslept-in: Michael had a couch in the upper room of his ‘tower’. The bathroom boasted a circular bath almost the size of a swimming pool; there were several guest bedrooms though they never seemed to have guests; the kitchen had the latest kind of Aga but the microwave appeared to have seen more use. Except in Michael’s rooms there was luxury without personality, and a strange coldness, as if the whole house was an exhibit rather than a residence. Annie didn’t get to see inside Rianna’s tower: that was kept locked. ‘Rianna’s very intense about her privacy,’ Michael explained. ‘Even I don’t have a key.’
‘Bluebeard’s Chamber,’ Annie said before she could stop herself.
‘Stacked with the bodies of her ex-husbands?’ Michael laughed. ‘There’s only been one, he’s a producer, I’ve met him. He’s about sixty now and married to a blonde of twenty-three.’
‘Sorry,’ Annie said. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude, or … or nosy.’
‘You weren’t,’ said Michael. ‘I suppose it does sound a bit odd, to people who don’t know Rianna. She’s – I expect you would call her temperamental. Personal space is very important to her. We have a wonderful cleaner, a Yugoslav émigré who comes over from Crowford, but Rianna won’t let her in there; she prefers to do the cleaning herself. Now, what would you like to drink? There’s whisky, gin, beer … whisky, more whisky.’
‘I’ll have a whisky,’ Annie said with a smile.
They had their drinks in the sitting room above Michael’s study, containing the couch ‘for those short kips between periods of not working’, and a couple of worn leather armchairs. Its windows framed a view over the conservation area in one direction, and down to the river in the other. Since it was too dark to see very far, Michael took some pains to explain about the benefits of the view. When they dimmed the light Annie saw a shiny new moon in a sky full of crispy stars, and shadowy fields stretching away towards the village, and the twinkling of illuminated windows in the nearest houses. She turned back, and there was Michael’s crooked smile, soft in the dimness, and his glasses hiding the expression in his eyes. He turned up the light, and she found herself looking at a picture of Rianna on a sideboard, a very glamorous picture, black-and-white, with a cloud of dark hair framing her artistic cheekbones, and deepset eyes darkly made up under the flying line of her brows.
‘She’s very beautiful,’ Annie said politely.
‘I know,’ said Michael. It might have been her fancy that he sounded almost rueful.
When their glasses were empty, he said: ‘I’ll walk you home.’ And then: ‘Damn. It’s later than I thought. I’ve got a call coming in, from the States.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Annie assured him.
I like him, she thought, but I don’t like the house. Apart from his bit. There’s something wrong about it, something …
Something to do with Rianna Sardou.
She set off down the lane, hugging her coat round her in the cold, lost in her own reflections. The awareness didn’t come upon her suddenly; rather, it was a gradual feeling, a creeping change in the night, a slow prickle down her spine. There was a moment when she stopped, and glanced back, seeing nothing, and felt that the wrongness which she had sensed in the house had come with her, following her, becoming a shadow at her heels, a listener on the edge of hearing. There was a horrible familiarity about it. And then a shiver seemed to run through the hedgerows, as if a darkness slipped between the leafless stems, and she caught the whisper of words that could not be discerned, a whisper quieter than quiet, so close to her ear she expected to feel the chill of its breath on her cheek.
Them.
She didn’t run: there was no point. She walked very quickly, trying not to look back again, counting her paces in heartbeats. The lane dipped as it ran through the meadows and for a few minutes she could see no lights ahead, and she was alone, or not alone, and behind her she knew the shadows were playing grandmother’s footsteps, and the whisper was so intimate she could imagine disembodied lips moving within an inch of her face. She fancied there was a cold touch on her nape, as if a groping hand reached out to seize her – and then she saw the lights of a house in front, and the fantasy withdrew, she began to run as though released from a spell. Past gardens and back gates, into the village street, down the road to the bookshop. She shut and locked the door, but she knew it would be no use: no door had ever kept them out save that of Thornyhill. She stumbled to the phone and pressed out a number with unsteady fingers.
Ten minutes later Bartlemy was sitting in her little back room, filling much of it, a quiet, reassuring presence.
‘After Nathan was born,’ Annie was saying, ‘I always thought I went a little crazy. They were part of the craziness – that was what I told myself. Until now. But you saw them, didn’t you? The night we came to Thornyhill. You saw them following me.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said calmly. ‘I saw them.’
‘What are they? Who are they? Why have they come back?’
‘If I knew the answers to those questions,’ said Bartlemy, ‘I would be a wiser, if not a happier man. I know only what I have observed or deduced. They seem to have no real substance, yet they exist. They are made of shadow and fear. There are always many, a swarm rather than individuals. They are like nothing I have ever seen before, and I have seen many strange things. I was able to keep them away from Thornyhill – my influence is strong there – and I hoped they were gone for good, but clearly that isn’t so. Yet why should they reappear now? Where have they been? In hibernation maybe, until some call or need drew them forth. You were visiting Riverside House?’
‘Yes. I wondered … if they were there waiting. There’s something not quite right in that place. Not creepy, just rather peculiar. A feeling as if – something was out of kilter. I think it has to do with Michael’s wife.’
‘Rianna Sardou … A theatrical name. A name for a witch. I believe she looks like one, too, at least on screen: all darkness and glamour. A storybook witch. But stories can lie.’
‘Do you think there’s a connection between Rianna and – them?’
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t know why they pursued you in the past, or why that pursuit resumed today. As I said, I don’t know any of the answers, but I can think of another question.’
‘What’s that?’ Annie could think of several.
‘Why don’t they ever catch up?’
Annie shivered. ‘Don’t! I thought – something touched me, back there in the lane …’
‘Nonetheless, they didn’t catch you. They followed you for months, all those years ago, and they didn’t catch you. Why not? They are far swifter than humans. They hunted you with darkness and terror, but you always eluded them. Are they chasing you, or simply watching you – spying on you? Or else –’
‘Can
