‘You have a beautiful home,’ Ben said.

‘Thank you. It’s been in the family since the Declaration of Independence.’ She smiled. ‘So you’re a friend of the Bradbury family,’ she said, watching him closely.

He nodded. ‘Tom and Jane send their regards.’

‘Lovely people,’ she said. ‘And Oxford is a fine city. I mean to visit there again in August, for the summer school.’

‘I gather you have a great passion for archaeology.’

‘Indeed I have,’ she said. ‘That’s how I met Zoë. Such a talented young lady. Very intelligent. A little headstrong, perhaps. And rather wild, too.’

‘That’s what people say.’

‘Have you seen her lately?’

‘The last time I saw her, she was about this big.’ Ben held his hand three feet off the floor.

She smiled. ‘So you’re not one of her young bucks, then.’

‘No, I’m not one of her young bucks.’

She didn’t reply to that, but he thought he could see a look of relief and approval in her eye. ‘What do you do, Benedict?’ she asked sweetly.

‘Ben. I’m a student. In fact I’m Tom Bradbury’s student at Oxford.’

‘My, that’s wonderful. You’re a theologian.’

‘I was planning to be.’

‘Then you should really be using that beautiful name of yours. You know what it means, don’t you?’

He said nothing.

‘It means “blessed”,’ she said.

‘I think I’m more cursed than blessed.’

She held his earnest gaze for a second, then laughed. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that. Tell me, Benedict. Where are you staying?’

He told her the name of his hotel, and she shook her head and clicked her tongue. ‘I won’t have it,’ she said. ‘You must come and be my guest here.’

‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

‘You won’t. You can have the old carriage house. It’s a special guest quarters adjoining the house. You’ll be no trouble to me, and I’ll be no trouble to you.’

‘It’s very kind of you,’ he said.

‘Not at all. I’ll have one of the staff collect your luggage from the hotel.’

He pointed to his canvas bag. ‘This is it.’

Miss Vale laughed. ‘You certainly like to travel light, Benedict. And of course, you’ll have dinner with us tonight.’

‘Us?’

‘With myself and Clayton. He is a regular visitor to the house.’

‘Would that be Clayton Cleaver?’

‘Why, you’ve heard of him?’

‘Who hasn’t?’ he said.

‘Then you must be familiar with his book,’ she said.

‘I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure of reading it yet.’

‘Then I’ll give you a copy right away.’ She rang a little bell, and a handsome black woman came into the room. Miss Vale smiled at her, and introduced them. ‘Benedict, this is my housekeeper, Mae.’ She turned to Mae. ‘Could you have one of the girls fetch down a copy of Mr Cleaver’s book from the library?’

‘Right away, Miss Vale.’ Mae nodded and left briskly.

Augusta Vale’s eyes sparkled. ‘You must read it,’ she said to Ben. ‘It changed my life. You know, Clayton personally received Divine illumination from the eternal Spirit of St John the Apostle.’

‘It sounds like quite a book,’ Ben said.

After a few moments a maid entered the room with a large hardback book in her hands. She handed it solemnly to Miss Vale. The old lady dismissed her with a kindly smile. She turned the book lovingly in her hands, and then passed it to Ben.

He thanked her and laid it in his lap. The heavily embossed gold script on the cover read, ‘JOHN SPOKE TO ME, by Clayton R. Cleaver’.

‘Clayton distributes it free to all the poor and underprivileged families,’ Miss Vale said, glowing. ‘He is truly a wonderful man.’

Ben opened the cover. Inside was a foreword by the author. He scanned it quickly.

Ten years ago, I completed the manuscript of this book in a moment of Divine revelation and sent copies to every publisher in the USA. Not one of them wanted to publish it. But I already knew they wouldn’t, because that is what John told me. He told me to persist. That this book had to get out there. I sold my car. I sold my house. I sold everything I had. I lived in a trailer and invested every cent to set up my own publishing company and bring this book, dear reader, into your hands.

John was right in every word He said. The book was so successful that within the year I had every major US publisher begging me for the rights. To date, the Word of John has gone out to more than twelve million Americans …

‘So what do you think, Benedict?’ the old lady asked.

‘It certainly looks interesting,’ Ben said.

‘Take it,’ she said instantly. ‘I have many copies.’

‘That’s very kind, Miss Vale. I look forward to reading it very much. I’m looking forward to meeting the author too.’

She beamed at him. ‘I believe this must have been meant to happen. I just know you and Clayton will get along.’

Mae showed Ben to the carriage house. The guest quarters were situated at the back of the mansion, on the ground floor. It was a substantial apartment in its own right, with two bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom, living room and even its own dining room. The furnishings were exquisite. Ben tossed his bag onto the four-poster bed and walked back to the living room. French windows looked out over a magnificent subtropical garden filled with palm trees and Spanish moss, and roses of every colour imaginable.

Looking around him at his elegant surroundings and thinking of his amiable, obviously very generous and charming hostess, he couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing with a thug like Clayton Cleaver.

He wondered what kind of man Cleaver must be. He looked at his watch. In a few hours he’d find out.

Far away, Zoë Bradbury was sitting up in her bed, her hands folded limply in her lap, gazing into the middle distance. At the bedside, sitting in a plastic chair, the doctor was making notes on his pad. It was just the two of them. As always, his questions were soft and gentle.

‘That’s a very nice bracelet you’re wearing, Zoë. Is it real gold?’

She held out her right arm and stared at the shiny link bracelet as though she’d never seen it before. ‘I suppose so,’ she muttered suspiciously. She knew that every line of questioning, however indirect and subtle, was a probe searching for a way inside her head. Part of her wanted to scream and run, to fight it until she dropped, to hate this man. But there was a soft look in the doctor’s eye that was genuine, and some part of her very much wanted to trust him, reach out to him. It was an inner conflict she was finding hard to resolve. She was a prisoner; she was kidnapped; yet this man seemed sincerely to want to help her.

‘It looks antique,’ the doctor said. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘I don’t remember where it came from. I don’t know how long it’s been there.’

‘Maybe it was a gift from someone close,’ the doctor suggested. ‘Someone who loves you, like a relative. Tell me about your family.’

‘I see faces in my mind. I think they’re my parents’.’

He nodded. ‘That’s good progress. Things are starting to come back to you, just like I said they would.’

‘Will it all come back?’

‘What you have is called post-traumatic retrograde amnesia,’ he said. ‘The memory loss is usually transient, depending on the severity of the injury. You had a nasty knock on the head. But I’ve seen a lot worse.’ He reached into his briefcase and brought out a book. ‘Now, I have something to show you.’

‘Where am I?’ she asked flatly, ignoring the book. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d asked him that.

He gave his standard reply. ‘A place where we’re going to make you better.’

She sensed his discomfort as he said it. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ she asked, looking him in the eye. A tear rolled down her cheek.