But the man was chattering on, unconcerned.

“After I’d done the angel, I tentatively suggested a nude. The pose was Frek’s choice. Always been a bit of a game between us ever since she told me she was gay, her still trying to get me going, me demonstrating my indifference. It’s intellectual with her, I think. The theater of the absurd, she calls it, watching men jump through hoops in the hope of earning a treat. Daren’t let Gerry see it, of course. He’s old-fashioned enough to come after me with a horse whip!”

It took Mig several moments to let the meaning of what he was hearing penetrate his anger. First came disbelief, then shock, and then a slow unraveling of the knot in his chest as he took in not only what Winander was saying but his motives in saying it. And his methods. He was letting him know that Frek was a lesbian, but doing it as if assuming that Mig had recognized this all along and hadn’t let himself be made a fool of.

No. He corrected that. He’d made a fool of himself. All that Frek had done was… nothing. Why should she? And she’d brought matters to a halt when it must have been clear he was on the point of taking direct action.

Father Dominic, talking of the vow of chastity, had said that it had nothing to do with morality as many supposed, and everything to do with the power of sex to cloud judgment, squander energy, divert the will.

“That’s why among your list of things coming to an end in Skaddale, you included the Woollasses,” he said, trying for a man-of-the-world tone. “But surely nowadays it is almost a commonplace for lesbian women to start families.”

“Not Frek,” said Winander. “I asked her and she said that happily the maternal impulse hadn’t been tossed into her cradle by a malicious fairy godmother. When I said that old Dunny must be distressed to foresee the end of his line, she laughed and said not as distressed as he’d be at the thought of a Woollass coming out of a test tube. Funny world we live in, ain’t it?”

Mig did not respond. He’d turned away from the disturbing wood carving and was staring out of a window into the yard where his gaze had been drawn to something which gave him a shock less definable than the news of Frek’s sexuality, but for some reason even more powerful.

“What is that?” he demanded.

“What? My wolf head, you mean? Or perhaps I should say Frek’s wolf head.”

“Frek’s?”

“Yes,” said Thor. “She commissioned it, so to speak. That’s how she came to be my model. Come and have a closer look if you want.”

As they crossed the yard, he told the story of his deal with Frek, but Mig wasn’t listening. His gaze was riveted on the huge wood sculpture. There was something truly menacing about it. He came to a halt a couple of feet away, then took a further step back.

Winander said, “Interesting. Most people can’t resist touching it. Little Sam almost wrapped herself around it. But you look like you’re scared it would bite.”

“Do I?” said Madero. Then added, more to himself than Thor, “It feels alive.”

“Thank you kindly, sir,” said Winander, taking this as a comment on his carving.

Mig didn’t correct him. He didn’t care to share the sense he got that this towering lump of wood was vibrant with intent, and it wasn’t good.

“Where did it actually come from?” he asked. He felt he knew the answer.

“Didn’t I say? It came out of Mecklin Moss,” replied Winander. “You’d have expected anything in that acidy bog would rot away in no time. But this is absolutely solid.” He gave it a slap and laughed. “Reminds me of an Eskdale lass I once knew. Finest Cumberland wrestler I ever met, only the rules wouldn’t let her enter at the shows, so she had to make do with best of three falls in the hayfields with the likes of me!”

His laughter gave Mig strength to turn away from the Wolf Head and make his farewells. Common sense told him Winander was right. There was no way this could have any connection with the ordeal of that other Miguel four hundred years before.

But as he walked away down the hill he was both glad and ashamed that he hadn’t found the courage to touch that smooth and sensuously curved slab of old wood.

That same evening at six o’clock prompt, Miguel Madero entered the bar of the Stranger House.

As he pushed open the door, a memory from childhood of the old Western films he’d loved (and still did) flashed into his mind. The hero enters, the chatter of conversation dies away, the piano tinkles to silence, the bartender freezes in the act of pouring a drink, and the man he’s pouring it for turns slowly to face the door, smiling a welcome at the newcomer even as his hand adjusts the Colt in his holster.

It was a ludicrous memory and the fact that the room was empty made it even more so. But still he felt like a Western hero, come for the showdown.

Back at the Stranger, he had headed straight up to his room but only been there a couple of minutes when there was a tap at his door.

He opened it to find Mrs. Appledore standing there, holding a plate with a sandwich on it.

“Thought you might fancy a nibble after your exertions,” she said with that discomforting Illthwaite assumption of knowing exactly how he’d spent his morning, but her warm smile more than redressed the balance.

She must have been a very attractive woman in her younger days, he thought, as he took the sandwich with a smile of thanks. In fact even now it would be very easy for a man to stop thinking of her as comfortably motherly and start thinking…

Oh God! Stop this! he commanded himself angrily. Just because he was no longer committed by formal vows to the celibate life didn’t mean that lustful thoughts were any less sinful. But he knew he was reacting less to the idea of sin than the memory of the way his adolescent fancies had made him such an easy target for Frek Woollass.

As if the thought had nudged Mrs. Appledore’s memory, she said, “By the way, Frek Woollass just called. She said to tell you she’s passed on your message and are you going to be here in the pub tonight? If you are, fine. No need to ring back.”

Meaning presumably that Gerry didn’t care to have him back in the Hall but, having listened to his daughter’s report, was willing to talk on neutral ground.

“No time was mentioned?”

“Round here, tonight’s a time,” she said, laughing.

She was an easy woman to make laugh. That was one of her many attractions…

¡Mierda! There he went again with that knee-jerk prurience.

“You’ll be wanting some grub, if you’re staying in,” she suggested.

“That would be good,” he said. He certainly did not intend to sit in his room, waiting anxiously.

“Sausage or ham?” she asked. “And what time?”

“Let’s make it early, before you get too busy,” he said. “Six? And sausage.”

“Six and sausage it is,” she said.

And now six it was, and the sausage wasn’t far behind.

“Evening, Mr. Madero,” said Edie Appledore from the bar. “I’ve reserved the table in the nook for you. Let me get you a drink, then I’ll see to your grub. Will it be a sherry to whet your appetite?”

It was a kind thought but he did not care to think how long a bottle of sherry in this bar might have been standing open.

“No thanks,” he said. “A half of bitter, please.”

“When in Rome, eh?”

She drew a half-pint, looked at it critically, and poured it and another three away before she was satisfied.

“First of the night,” she said. “You don’t want stuff that’s been lying in the pipes.”

If only they took care of their wine as they took care of their beer, he thought.

He carried his glass to the table in the corner by the fireplace and chose the chair with its back to the wall.

A good shootist never sat with his back to the entrance door.

Would Frek come with her father? he wondered. Knowing what he knew now, how would he react to her? Down by the river she’d played him like a fish, hooked him, landed him, then left him floundering on the bank. He had told her everything. She had told him nothing. Unlike his exchange in the kitchen chamber with Sam, there had been no sense of sharing, of giving and taking comfort. Theirs had been an enforced intimacy, but it had been an intimacy for all that. Yet he couldn’t accuse Frek of being deceitful. She hadn’t created an illusion, simply allowed him to create one for himself.