The image experienced in a flash of gold, a flush of warmth to her face, was so vivid that for a second she hesitated at the kitchen door as if disorientated. Then her vision cleared and she saw the familiar objects, the Aga and the gas stove with the nearby working surfaces, the table of polished oak in the middle of the room with its four elegantly crafted chairs, and at the far end Alice's office with the walls covered with bookshelves and her desk piled with proofs. Alice was standing working at the table, wearing her long fawn smock.

She said: 'As you can see, I'm making lemon curd. Alex and I enjoy it occasionally and I enjoy making it, which I suppose is sufficient justification for the trouble.'

'We hardly ever had it – Martin and I, that is. I don't think I've eaten it since childhood. Mother bought it occasionally as a treat for Sunday tea.'

'If she bought it, then you don't know what it ought to taste like.'

Meg laughed and settled into the wicker chair to the left of the fireplace. She never asked if she could help in the kitchen since she knew Alice would be irritated by an offer which she knew to be impractical and insincere. Help was neither needed nor welcomed. But Meg loved to sit quietly and watch. Was it perhaps a memory of childhood, she wondered, that made watching a woman cooking in her own kitchen so extraordinarily reassuring and satisfying. If so, modern children were being deprived of yet one more source of comfort in their increasingly disordered and frightening world.

She said: 'Mother didn't make lemon curd but she did enjoy cooking. It was all very simple, though.'

'That's the difficult kind. And I suppose you helped her. I can picture you in your pinafore making gingerbread men.'

'She used to give me a piece of the dough when she was making pastry. By the time I'd finished pounding it, rolling it and shaping it, it was dun-coloured. And I used to cut out shaped biscuits. And yes, I did make gingerbread men with currants for their eyes, didn't you?'

'No. My mother didn't spend much time in the kitchen. She wasn't a good cook and my father's criticism destroyed what little confidence she had. He paid for a local woman to come in daily to cook the evening meal, virtually the only one he ate at home except on Sundays. She wouldn't come at weekends so that family meals then tended to be acrimonious. It was an odd arrangement and Mrs Watkins was an odd woman. She was a good cook but worked in a perpetual lather of bad temper and she certainly didn't welcome children in her kitchen. I only became interested in cookery when I was taking my degree in modern languages in London and spent a term in France. That's how it began. I found my necessary passion. I realized that I didn't have to teach or translate or become some man's over-qualified secretary.'

Meg didn't reply. Alice had only once before spoken of her family or her past life and she felt that to comment or question might cause her friend to regret the moment of rare confidence. She leaned comfortably back and watched as the deft, familiar, long-fingered hands moved confidently about their business. Before Alice on the table were eight large eggs in a blue shallow bowl and, beside it, a plate with a slab of butter and another with four lemons. She was rubbing the lemons with lumps of sugar until the lumps crumbled into a bowl, when she would pick up another and again begin patiently working away.

She said: 'This will make two pounds. I'll give you ajar to take to the Copleys if you think they'd like it.'

'I'm sure they would, but I'll be eating it alone. That's what I've come to tell you. I can't stay long. Their daughter is insisting that they go to her until the Whistler is caught. She rang again early this morning as soon as she heard the news of the latest murder.'

Alice said: 'The Whistler's getting uncomfortably close, certainly, but they're hardly at risk. He only stalks at night and all the victims have been young women. And the Copleys don't even go out, do they, unless you drive them?'

'They sometimes walk by the sea, but usually they take their exercise in the garden. I've tried to persuade Rosemary Duncan-Smith that they're not in danger and that none of us is frightened. But I think her friends are criticizing her for not getting them away.'

'I see. She doesn't want to have them, they don't want to go, but the friends, so-called, must be propitiated.'

'I think she's one of those masterful, efficient women who can't tolerate criticism. To be fair to her, I think she's genuinely worried.'

'So when are they going?'

'Sunday night. I'm driving them to Norwich to catch the eight thirty getting into Liverpool Street at ten fifty-eight. Their daughter will meet them.'

'That's not very convenient, is it? Sunday travel is always difficult. Why can't they wait till Monday morning?'

'Because Mrs Duncan-Smith is staying at her club in Audley Square for the weekend and has taken a room for them there. Then they can all drive down to Wiltshire first thing on Monday morning.'

'And what about you? Will you mind being left alone?'

'Not in the least. Oh, I expect I'll miss them when they've gone, but at present I keep thinking of all the work I'll be able to catch up on. And I'll be able to spend more time here, helping with the proofs. I don't think I'll be afraid. I can understand the fear and sometimes I find myself almost playing at being frightened, deliberately dwelling on the horror as if I'm testing my own nerve. It's all right in the daytime. But when night falls and we're sitting there by the fire, I can imagine him out there in the darkness, watching and waiting. It's that sense of the unseen, unknowable menace which is so disquieting. It's rather like the feeling I get from the power station, that there's a dangerous unpredictable power out on the headland which I can't control or even begin to understand.'

Alice said: 'The Whistler isn't in the least like the power station. Nuclear power can be understood and it can be controlled. But this latest murder is certainly a nuisance for Alex. Some of the secretaries live locally and bus or cycle home. He's arranging for the staff with cars to take them and pick them up in the morning, but with shift work that means more organizing than you'd expect. And some of the girls are beginning to panic and say they'll only be driven by another woman.'

'But they can't seriously think it's a colleague, someone from the power station?'

'They don't seriously think, that's the trouble. Instinct takes over and their instinct is to suspect every man, particularly if he hasn't an alibi for the last two murders. And then there's Hilary Robarts. She swims almost every evening until the end of October, and sometimes through the winter. She still intends to swim. The chances of her getting murdered may be a million to one but it's an act of bravado which sets a bad example. I'm sorry about yesterday evening, by the way. Not a very successful dinner party. I owed a meal to Miles and Hilary but I hadn't realized just how much they dislike each other. I don't know why. Alex probably does, but I'm not really interested enough to ask. How did you get on with our resident poet?'

Meg said: 'I liked him. I thought he'd be rather intimidating but he isn't, is he? We walked together to the abbey ruins. They look so wonderful by moonlight.'

Alice said: 'Appropriately romantic for a poet. I'm glad you didn't find his company disappointing. But I can never look at the moon without visualizing that litter of hardware. Man leaves his polluting mess behind him like metal turds. But it will be full moon on Sunday night. Why not come here for a quiet supper when you get back from the station and we'll walk to the ruins together. I'll expect you at nine thirty. It will probably just be the two of us. Alex usually goes into the station after a weekend in town.'