“The vicarage?” said Sam through dry lips. “Gracie didn’t say that.”

“Not surprising. I’ve just recalled it myself. Yeah, it definitely said the vicarage.”

“But not Cumberland? So why did you say Cumberland?”

“Because that’s where Sam said she came from,” said Betty.

“You talked with her about her background?” said Sam eagerly. “What else did she tell you?”

“Not much. You’ve got to understand that talking to Sam was a bit like talking to a frightened kitten. If you kept at it, you might get it to give a little purr, but it sure as hell wasn’t going to start talking back. So it was me who did most of the talking when we got a chance to talk, which wasn’t all that often. If them nuns could have cut our tongues out and sewn on extra ears to pour their talk of hellfire into, that’s what they’d have done.”

“But she did tell you something about her background?” pressed Sam, desperate for every scrap.

“Nothing much, apart from living in Cumberland. Nothing about parents, but that wasn’t surprising. Lot of the kids knew next to nothing about where they came from. Like I say, she didn’t say much and what she did didn’t make much sense. Sometimes it was hard to make out if she was talking about herself or someone else called Sam. She’d say something about Sam being warm in bed, Sam taking care of her. She answered to Sam, but that could have been because none of us ever called her anything else. For all I know, this name Sam Flood on her piece of paper referred to someone else entirely. It’s just a possibility, but worth keeping in mind if you are going to carry on looking.”

It’s strange, thought Sam. People could say things that changed the shape of your universe without them ever realizing it.

She stood up abruptly. She needed to be away and by herself.

“Yes, I’ll definitely keep it in mind. Thank you. You’ve been very helpful,” she said formally.

Betty was looking surprised. And concerned.

“Don’t rush off,” she said. “I’ve got to hang on here till they come for the furniture. Let’s just sit and yack, OK? Tell me about your family. And Gracie – tell me about old Gracie.”

“My family’s fine, Gracie’s fine, I’m fine. But I’ve got to go. I’ve got things to do. Thanks a lot. Really. Thanks.”

She headed for the door. She knew she was being rude. There was nothing but sympathy and kindness on offer here.

She stopped and turned back and said, “Betty, thanks a million. It’s been really kind of you to take time to see me, especially with your ma just dying. I’m real sorry about that.”

Betty’s arms came round her and drew her into her ample bosom. Feeling that strength, that warmth, hearing soothing words being murmured in that home-evoking accent, it would have been easy to let go, relax, let the tears come.

But beneath her pain there was anger and hate. She didn’t want them to be assuaged, she didn’t want their edge to be blunted.

Still dry-eyed, she began to disengage.

Betty said, “Now you take care of yourself. Keep in touch, won’t you? I’d really like to get to know you better. Maybe your pa would like to talk to me…”

Sam kissed her and broke loose.

“Yes, I will. Thanks again. ’Bye.”

As she walked from the door, she didn’t look back till she was in her car with the engine started. Then she waved and drove away.

She didn’t feel she could drive far. Round the corner there was a parade of shops with parking spaces in front of them. She brought the car to a halt. She felt something, but didn’t know what it was. She’d felt like this as a kid when she’d run around too long hatless in the midday sun. She didn’t know whether she was going to be sick or faint.

Finally she leaned forward with her head against the steering wheel and, without forewarning, tears came.

After a couple of minutes she sat upright and wiped her eyes. She looked around, half expecting to be a focus of attention, but there weren’t many people about and those that were didn’t show any interest in her.

That was OK. That was how she wanted it. Take care of your own business. That was the way of the world. She certainly planned to take care of hers.

One of the shops in the parade was a hardware store. She got out of the car, went inside and bought a pair of kitchen scissors. Then she returned to the car and drove away and kept on driving till buildings thinned out and were replaced by fields and trees.

She turned up a quiet side road then parked close against a hawthorn hedge. She pulled down the sun visor and looked at herself in the small vanity mirror. The slate blue eyes that stared back were like a stranger’s.

Finally she took hold of a tress of her rich red hair, stretched it out to its full length, laid it over the saltire of the scissors, hesitated for a long moment, then brought the blades together with a savage click, and let the long tress fall to the floor.

The first cut was the hardest. Wasn’t it always? After that it was as if the scissors controlled her hand, dancing a mad cancan over her head, blades kicking high and closing hard, hair flying to left and right like sparks from a raging bonfire. From time to time the sharp metal grazed her scalp but she never paused till not a lock of hair longer than half an inch remained to be seen.

Now the woman in the mirror really was a stranger to her. A scary stranger.

Scary was OK.

That’s what she wanted to be, scary.

Back in Illthwaite they prided themselves that they didn’t scare easy.

“We’ll just have to see about that,” said the woman in the mirror.

Miguel Madero had been surprised by his sense of loss as he watched Sam drive away.

He had only known her for a single day, there was a fundamental antagonism between them, yet somehow it felt like losing an ally. Even though he had seen the last of her, he still felt as though they were united by more than just the common drawing together of strangers meeting on unfamiliar territory. But if God had purposed that they should be here together, then He had also decided that it shouldn’t be for long.

At all levels, her work in Illthwaite was done.

On her own behalf she’d followed a false trail laid by coincidence she now regarded as meaningless. He prayed she would find some sort of closure in her conversation with this woman in Newcastle.

But there had also been what he thought of as the real purpose of her visit to Illthwaite. Without her he might not have raised the table and found the hiding place. And certainly without her he wouldn’t be reading the terrible story written in the cramped hand of Simeon Woollass from the fevered ramblings of his own distant ancestor and namesake.

Strictly the journal belonged to the Woollass family. Or the Catholic Church. Or perhaps to the Crown as treasure trove. That was for lawyers to sort out. But not before he had translated and copied out what was written here.

Using Sam’s key, he started transcribing the words, at first slowly and awkwardly, but then, as he grew familiar with both the cipher and the cryptographer’s own abbreviations, with increasing confidence, till finally he was keying the words into his laptop at full speed. By halfway through the morning he had finished.

He sat there till the screensaver appeared and wiped away the words. Then he went and lay on his bed, looking up at the low-beamed ceiling, as if by will alone he could force his gaze through the stained and cracked plaster up through the roof tiles and after that through the vaulting cerulean itself in search of answers to that oldest of questions – how can such things be?