Even after a meal which would have sickened her withits excess a few days before, she felt light-headed as sheset out for All Saints; almost as though she were drunk.Not the maudlin drunkenness she had been prone towhen with Mitch, but a euphoria which made her feelwell-nigh invulnerable, as if she had at last located somebright and incorruptible part of herself, and no harmwould ever befall her again.

She had prepared herself for finding All Saints inruins, but she did not. The building still stood, its wallsuntouched, its beams still dividing the sky. Perhaps ittoo could not be toppled, she mused; perhaps she andit were twin immortals. The suspicion was reinforcedby the gaggle of fresh worshippers the church hadattracted. The police guard had trebled since the dayshe'd been here, and the tarpaulin that had shieldedthe crypt entrance from sight was now a vast tent,supported by scaffolding, which entirely encompassedthe flank of the building. The altar-servers, standingin close proximity to the tent, wore masks and gloves;the high priests - the chosen few who were actuallyallowed into the Holy of Holies - were entirely garbedin protective suits.

She watched from the cordon: the signs and genu-flections between the devotees; the sluicing down of thesuited men as they emerged from behind the veil; thefine spray of fumigants which filled the air like bitterincense.

Another onlooker was quizzing one of the officers.

'Why the suits?'

'In case it's contagious,' the reply came.

'After all these years?'

'They don't know what they've got in there.'

'Diseases don't last, do they?'

'It's a plague-pit,' the officer said. 'They're just beingcautious.'

Elaine listened to the exchange, and her tongue itchedto speak. She could save them their investigations with afew words. After all, she was living proof that whateverpestilence had destroyed the families in the crypt it wasno longer virulent. She had breathed that air, she hadtouched that mouldy flesh, and she felt healthier nowthan she had in years. But they would not thank her forher revelations, would they? They were too engrossedin their rituals; perhaps even excited by the discoveryof such horrors, their turmoil fuelled and fired by thepossibility that this death was still living. She wouldnot be so unsporting as to sour their enthusiasm witha confession of her own rare good health.

Instead she turned her back on the priests and theirrites, on the drizzle of incense in the air, and began towalk away from the square. As she looked up from herthoughts she glimpsed a familiar figure watching herfrom the corner of the adjacent street. He turned awayas she glanced up, but it was undoubtedly Kavanagh.She called to him, and went to the corner, but he waswalking smartly away from her, head bowed. Again shecalled after him, and now he turned - a patently falselook of surprise pasted onto his face - and retrod hisescape-route to greet her.

'Have you heard what they've found?' she askedhim.

'Oh yes,' he replied. Despite the familiarity they'd lastenjoyed she was reminded now of her first impressionof him: that he was not a man much conversant withfeeling.

'Now you'll never get your stones,' she said.

'I suppose not,' he replied, not overtly concerned atthe loss.

She wanted to tell him that she'd seen the plague-pitwith her own eyes, hoping the news would bring a gleamto his face, but the corner of this sunlit street was aninappropriate spot for such talk. Besides, it was almostas if he knew. He looked at her so oddly, the warmth oftheir previous meeting entirely gone.

'Why did you come back?' he asked her.

'Just to see,' she replied.

'I'm flattered.'

'Flattered?'

That my enthusiasm for mausoleums is infectious.'

Still he watched her, and she, returning his look, wasconscious of how cold his eyes were, and how perfectlyshiny. They might have been glass, she thought; and hisskin suede-glued like a hood over the subtle architectureof his skull.

'I should go,' she said.

'Business or pleasure?'

'Neither,' she told him. 'One or two of my friends areill.'

'Ah.'

She had the impression that he wanted to be away;that it was only fear of foolishness that kept him fromrunning from her.

'Perhaps I'll see you again,' she said. 'Sometime.'

'I'm sure,' he replied, gratefully taking his cue andretreating along the street. 'And to your friends - mybest regards.'

Even if she wanted to pass Kavanagh's good wishesalong to Reuben and Sonja, she could not have doneso. Hermione did not answer the telephone, nor didany of the others. The closest she came was to leave amessage with Reuben's answering service.

The light-headedness she'd felt earlier in the daydeveloped into a strange dreaminess as the afternooninched towards evening. She ate again, but the feast didnothing to keep the fugue-state from deepening. She feltquite well; that sense of inviolability that had came uponher was still intact. But time and again as the day wore onshe found herself standing on the threshold of a room notknowing why she had come there; or watching the lightdwindle in the street outside without being quite certainif she was the viewer or the thing viewed. She was happywith her company though, as the flies were happy. Theykept buzzing attendance even though the dark fell.

About seven in the evening she heard a car draw upoutside, and the bell rang. She went to the door of herflat, but couldn't muster the inquisitiveness to open it,step out into the hallway and admit callers. It would beHermione again, most probably, and she didn't haveany appetite for gloomy talk. Didn't want anybody'scompany in fact, but that of the flies.

The callers insisted on the bell; the more they insistedthe more determined she became not to reply. She sliddown the wall beside the flat door and listened to themuted debate that now began on the step. It wasn'tHermione; it was nobody she recognized. Now theysystematically rang the bells of the flats above, untilMr Prudhoe came down from the top flat, talking tohimself as he went, and opened the door to them. Of theconversation that followed she caught sufficient only tograsp the urgency of their mission, but her dishevelledmind hadn't the persistence to attend to the details.They persuaded Prudhoe to allow them into the hallway.They approached the door of her flat and rapped uponit, calling her name. She didn't reply. They rappedagain, exchanging words of frustration. She wonderedif they could hear her smiling in the darkness. At last- after a further exchange with Prudhoe - they left herto herself.

She didn't know how long she sat on her haunchesbeside the door, but when she stood up again her lowerlimbs were entirely numb, and she was hungry. She atevoraciously, more or less finishing off all the purchasesof that morning. The flies seemed to have procreatedin the intervening hours; they crawled on the table andpicked at her slops. She let them eat. They too had theirlives to live.

Finally she decided to take some air. No sooner hadshe stepped out of her flat, however, than the vigilantPrudhoe was at the top of the stairs, and calling downto her.

'Miss Rider. Wait a moment. I have a message foryou.'

She contemplated closing the door on him, but sheknew he would not rest until he had delivered hiscommunique. He hurried down the stairs - a Cassandrain shabby slippers.

'There were policemen here,' he announced before hehad even reached the bottom step, 'they were looking foryou.'

'Oh,' she said. 'Did they say what they wanted?'

To talk to you. Urgently. Two of your friends -'

'What about them?'

'They died,' he said. 'This afternoon. They have somekind of disease.'