God, and I can't blame her, thought Diana, yet how foolish her actions seemed when looked at objectively. "Does Jonathan understand?" she asked curiously.

"I think so."

"Do you understand?"

"Yes, but that's not to say you or Phoebe are right. My own view is you're both getting your knickers in a twist over something that may never happen."

"I'll drink to that," said Diana, clinking her glass against her daughter's, but if she hoped this new fragile accord would lead to confidences, she was disappointed. Elizabeth had kept her own counsel too long to give it free expression on such tenuous beginnings.

"She is nice," said Elizabeth unexpectedly. "Very different from you. She's short and rather dumpy and she wears pinafore dresses all the time. She cooks very well. Dad's put on about two stone since he married her." She smiled. "None of his shirts do up any more, or they didn't three years ago."

Good lord, thought Diana, so that's what he wanted. She thought of the slim young man she had married with the cadaverous good looks and the designer clothes, and she chuckled. "Poor old Steven."

"He's very happy," her daughter protested, quick to see a criticism.

Diana held up her hands in mock surrender. "I'm sure he is and I'm glad. Very glad," she said, and she was.

"I suppose I'll have to ask the police if it's all right for me to go back to London," Elizabeth hazarded after a moment.

"When do you want to go?"

"Straight after lunch tomorrow. Jon said he'd drive me to the station."

"We'll ask Walsh in the morning," said Diana. "He's sure to be up here bright and early to rap me over the knuckles for this afternoon's little naughtiness."

"Oh, Mum," scolded Elizabeth as if she were speaking to a child, "you will be careful, won't you? You've got such a temper when you're angry. Frankly, I think you're damn lucky to have got off as lightly as you did."

"Yes," agreed Diana meekly, marvelling at how rapidly roles reversed.

Elizabeth pursed her lips. "Jon got into a fight today," she announced surprisingly, "but don't tell Phoebe. She'll have a fit."

"Where?"

"Silverborne. Some yobbos recognised him from that photo in the local newspaper, the one taken outside the hospital the night Anne was attacked. They called him a lessies' pimp, so he bopped one of them in the eye and took to his heels." She smiled. "I was rather impressed when he told me. I didn't think he had it in him."

Diana thought of David Maybury. Jonathan had it in him all right.

Within twenty-four hours Anne had made such a rapid recovery that she was suffering severe nicotine withdrawal symptoms and announced her intention of discharging herself. Jonathan told her not to be such a fool. "You nearly died. If it hadn't been for the Sergeant, you probably would have done. Your body needs time to recover and get over the shock."

"Damn," she said roundly, "and I can't remember a thing about it. No near-death experiences, no free-floating on the ceiling, no tunnels with shining lights at the end. What an absolute bugger, I could have written it all up. That's what comes of being an atheist."

Jonathan, who for various reasons had come to view McLoughlin as a bit of a hero, certainly not all to do with coming to Anne's rescue, took her to task. "Have you thanked him?"

She scowled from him to the WPC beside her bed. "What for? He was only doing his job."

"Saving your life."

She glowered. "Frankly, the way I feel at the moment, it wasn't worth saving. Life should be effortless, painless and fun. None of those apply here. It's a gulag, run by sadists." She nodded in the direction of the ward. "That Sister should be locked up. She laughs every time she sticks the needles into me and trills that she's doing it for my own good. God, I need a fag. Smuggle some in for me, Jonny. I'll puff away under the sheets. No one will know."

He grinned. "Until the bed goes up in flames."

"There you are, you're laughing," she accused. "What's the matter with everyone? Why do you all find it so hilarious?"

WPC Brownlow, on duty on the other side of the bed, sniggered.

Anne cast a baleful eye upon her. "I don't even know what you're doing here," she snapped. "I've told you all I can remember, which is absolutely zero." She had been unable to talk freely to anyone, which was undoubtedly why the bloody woman had been stationed there, and it was driving her mad.

"Orders," said the WPC calmly. "The Inspector wants someone on hand when your memory comes back."

Anne closed her eyes and thought of all the ways she could murder McLoughlin the minute she got her hands on him again.

He for his part had collated the information on the tramp and relayed his description through the county. He rang a colleague in Southampton and asked him, for a favour, to check round the hostels there.

"What makes you think he came here?"

"Logic," said McLoughlin. "He was heading your way and your Council's more sympathetic to the homeless than most in this area."

"But two months, Andy. He'll have been on his way weeks ago."

"I know. It's a good description though. Someone might remember him. If we had a name, it'd make things easier. See what you can do."

"I'm pretty busy at the moment."

"Aren't we all. Cheers." He put an end to the grumbles by the simple expedient of replacing the receiver, abandoned a cup of congealing plastic coffee and left in a hurry before his friend could ring back with a string of excuses. With a light conscience, he set off for the Grange and a chat with Jane Maybury who had announced herself ready to answer questions.

He asked her if she would prefer to have her mother present, but she shook her head and said no, it wasn't necessary. Phoebe, with a faintly troubled smile, showed them into her drawing-room and closed the door. They sat by the French windows. The girl was very pale, with a skin like creamy alabaster, but McLoughlin guessed this was her natural colouring. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a baggy tee-shirt with BRISTOL CITY emblazoned across the chest. He thought how incongruous it looked on the waif-like body.

She read his mind. "It's the triumph of hope over experience," she said. "I go in for a lot of that."

He smiled. "I suppose everyone does, one way or another. If at first you don't succeed and all that."

She settled herself a little nervously. "What do you want to ask me?"

"Just a few things but, first, I want you to understand that I have no desire to distress you. If you find my questions upsetting, please say so and we'll stop. If at any point you decide you'd rather talk to a policewoman, again just tell me and I'll arrange it."

She nodded. "I understand."

He took her back to the night of the assault and quickly ran through her account of watching television and hearing the sound of the breaking glass. "Your brother was the first to go downstairs, I think you said."

"Yes. He decided it was a burglar and told Lizzie and me to stay where we were until he called for us."

"But did you stay?"

"No. Lizzie insisted on going downstairs after him to get through to Diana's wing. We didn't know at that stage which window had been broken. I said I'd check Mum's rooms and Jon ran through to where you were."

"What happened then?"

"Mum and Diana arrived in the hall at the same time as us. Mum followed Jonathan. I checked this room, Diana checked the library and Lizzie the kitchen. When I got back to the hall, Mum was running downstairs with some blankets and a hot-water bottle and yelling at Diana to call an ambulance. I said, someone ought to warn Fred to open the gate and Mum said, of course, she hadn't thought of that." She spread her hands in her lap. "So I took the torch from the hall table and left."