There were two possibilities: either a sudden gust of wind had improbably blown the door shut and somehow wedged it, or somebody had closed it deliberately with the intention of making her a prisoner. If she called out, the only person likely to hear would be her captor-assuming there was a captor.

Lydia had been standing with her back to the doorway looking at the cigar box. Nobody could have closed the door without seeing her inside. Why shut her in? She tried to think it through but there was not an obvious answer.

Sooner or later, she told herself firmly, she would be missed. She had been seen in the village. She had little doubt that Mrs. Alforde would organize a search party, and little doubt that Mrs. Alforde would find her. It was tiresome-not least because it was growing colder-but surely nothing to worry about.

In the depths of her mind, however, more malign possibilities were stirring. A mother and baby had died in this nasty little barn. It was a place that aroused strong emotions. As the minutes passed, she found it harder and harder to be entirely rational. The light was fading, and she thought she heard rustlings in the straw and saw minute movements on the very edge of her range of vision.

And were there rats too?

“Help! Is there anyone there? Help!” She waited by the window, and then tried again, crying out the same words that were flat and useless because there was nobody to hear them.

Lydia’s throat was growing sore. There were half a dozen smoke-blackened bricks in one corner of the barn, perhaps a makeshift hearth for a tramp or even Amy Narton. She lifted one of them. Holding it in both hands, she banged it against the planks of the door. And again, and again, and again. The door didn’t budge and showed only the smallest indentations under the rain of blows.

The rough surface of the brick was chafing her hands. She put on her gloves again and kept hammering as rapidly as she could. The brick grew heavier, her arms more tired and her hands more painful. Each time she hit the wood, she gasped; and she had the strange, uncomfortable thought that Amy Narton must have made similar rhythmic sounds in the last desperate hours of her short life.

Finally, her strength gave out. She took a step back and dropped the brick, which fell with a dull thud to the earth floor. Her arms were trembling. The blood pounded in her veins and her throat was dry. She was slightly deaf. The brick had ruined the gloves, in places cutting through the kid leather and digging into her skin beneath. She held up her hands to the light from the window. There were smears of grime and blood on the pale leather. At least she was warmer. She would rest her arms for five minutes, she decided, and then try again.

It was then that she heard somebody rattling the door. The emotion that surged through her was panic, not relief-suppose it was her captor coming back? She bent down and seized the brick. Light flooded into the barn, making her blink. It must be earlier in the afternoon than she had thought. The doorway was almost filled by a large, bear-like silhouette.

She raised the brick. “You? It was you?”

There was a deep chuckle. “Mrs. Langstone,” Joseph Serridge said. “I don’t think you’ll be needing that.”

She lowered the brick. For the first time she sensed the nature of the man’s charm, a blind force like magnetism or a seismic tremor. Except it wasn’t really charm but a sort of hypnotic spell, an impression of overwhelming power. For the first time she also understood what had happened to Miss Penhow and Amy Narton.

“Thank you. I wasn’t quite sure-”

“What happened?” Serridge said, his voice hardening. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Lydia dropped the brick on the pile in the corner. “I am now, at any rate.”

“What’s been going on?” Serridge advanced into the barn, forcing her to step back. He glanced around quickly. “You’re the last person I expected to see.” He swung round and towered over her. “What are you doing here?”

“I came for a walk,” Lydia said sharply, feeling rattled. “I knew the farm my father used to own was over this way, and I thought I’d have a look at it. He told me he sold Morthams Farm to you.”

“But what are you doing in Rawling? You didn’t come all this way just to look at Morthams.”

“No, of course not,” Lydia snapped. “I came with Mrs. Alforde.”

“I didn’t realize you knew her.”

“Colonel Alforde is my godfather,” Lydia said.

“The devil he is. Well, I’m damned.” Serridge began to smile, but then his face changed again. “So why is Mrs. Alforde here today, and why has she brought you?”

“Look here, Mr. Serridge, I know I’m probably trespassing, and I apologize for that. But I don’t see why you should interrogate me like this. I’m having a day out of London with Mrs. Alforde. We’ve just had lunch with the Vicar.”

“Oh, I see. Narton’s funeral, I suppose. Mrs. Narton’s an old servant, isn’t she, and her dad worked on the estate.”

“And now I’d better be getting back to the Vicarage,” Lydia said, moving toward the door. “Mrs. Alforde and Mr. Gladwyn will be wondering where I am.”

“Of course. But somebody shut you in. Who?”

Lydia was outside now. On the ground was a length of iron piping about five feet long.

“I don’t like people going in here,” Serridge said. “The structure’s unsafe. I’m going to have it pulled down. It’s not used for anything now.”

Lydia pointed at the pipe. “Is that what was keeping the door shut?”

He nodded. “It had been wedged against it. Used to be the down-pipe from the guttering on the corner.”

A long, rounded indentation marked where the pipe had lain, imprinting its outline on the smooth, clay-streaked mud beneath. Lydia noticed a small footprint at one end.

“You didn’t see anyone?” Serridge asked. “Hear anyone?”

Lydia turned back to him, smudging the footprint with the heel of her own shoe as she did so. “No, I had my back to the door. There was an almighty bang. Somebody’s idea of a practical joke, I suppose.”

Serridge scowled, his face a dark red. “If I catch whoever did it, they’ll be sorry. I promise you that, Mrs. Langstone. Now, do you want to come up to the farm? I’ve got the car up there-I can run you back to the Vicarage.”

“Thank you, but no. They’ll probably be worrying about me. It won’t take me ten minutes to get back.”

He hesitated, and she thought he would try to persuade her to come to Morthams Farm with him. She didn’t want to go, for reasons she could only half acknowledge.

“All right. I’ll walk you back to the road.”

Lydia tried to protest that there was no need but he insisted. Serridge made her walk on the tussocky but relatively firm ground beside the hedge while he lumbered through the raw, recently ploughed earth of the field itself. At last they came to the gate. On the other side lay the lane, with the lights of the Vicarage already glimmering a hundred yards away.

Serridge paused, with his hand on the iron latch. “You’ll be making plans soon, I reckon.”

“What do you mean?”

“About what you do with your life.”

Lydia looked coldly at him and said with all the haughtiness she could muster, “I’m afraid Mrs. Alforde will be getting worried, Mr. Serridge. I wonder if you could open the gate?”

He looked down at her, his forehead corrugated with lines, his heavy brows huddled together. He looked so woebegone that for a second she almost felt sorry for him. Then it struck her that it was almost as if he knew about the divorce, or at least that a longer separation was likely. Had her father told him? But even her father didn’t yet know about her conversations with Mr. Shires.

Serridge unhooked the gate and pulled it open, standing aside to allow her through. “I’ll say good afternoon, Mrs. Langstone.” He touched the brim of his hat with a forefinger. “Mind how you go.”