(Close-up on Marjorie’s face.)

                            (Whispers.) Vince. My boy. (She dies.)

Honestly, what a lot of rot. She’d have to stretch out her death scene as long as possible. She wasn’t going that quickly. Put some real feeling into it so that a few tears would be shed at her passing.

She thought she’d better get on with running her lines but she had hardly got past the first one before she fell asleep. Some time later Saskia must have come in and removed her specs and turned off the light because when she woke up in the middle of the night, after the usual hectic dreams, it was dark and she couldn’t see anything. A little rehearsal for the real thing.

Four o’clock in the morning, if the old clock radio on the bedside table was correct. The dead time. Something had woken him, but he didn’t know what. The dog was awake as well.

Jackson slipped out of bed and padded across the dark room to the little attic window. He looked down into the deserted yard below and, beyond, into a narrow lane that ran behind the yard. Not much of a bella vista. Someone was lurking in the lane, a bulky figure dressed in the clothes of darkness. The creature detached itself from the shadows and slouched off down the street, too far away for Jackson to get a clear view of its features.

Common sense dictated that he should leave it alone. Leave it alone and climb back into a warm bed and go for a harmless adventure in the Land of Nod, rather than throwing on his clothes and climbing out of the window on to the fire escape in order to participate in a nightmare in the land of the living.

‘Allez oup!’ he said to the dog. The dog cocked its head to one side and gave him a quizzical look. Jackson demonstrated by climbing back in through the window and then climbing back out again. After a second’s hesitation, in which Jackson felt he was being assessed for trustworthiness, it jumped neatly out on to the fire escape and, shepherded by Jackson, scrabbled down the metal steps.

Jackson unlatched the yard gate with exaggerated delicacy. He didn’t want to incur the wrath of his hostess for the night by waking her from her beauty sleep. She needed all she could get.

When he stepped into the lane it was deserted. He thought of his mutinous hitchhiker and her handy Maglite-in-a-bag combo and wished he had something similar on his person. His Swiss Army knife was the nearest thing he had to a weapon and that was in his rucksack in his room.

He walked the length of the lane and came out on to another street of houses identical to Bella Vista. The dog stuck cautiously to his side, apparently not enjoying their escapade.

A figure sprang up ahead. Ill met by moonlight. One of the Land Cruiser guys. By their jackets shall ye know them. The hairs on Jackson’s scruff rose and he spun round to see what was behind him. Yep, they came as a pair, leather jackets, leather gloves, big leather boots, Jackson the filling in the cow sandwich. The one behind flexed his knuckles, an action that reminded Jackson of Marilyn Nettles’s cat trying to put the frighteners on him.

The dog’s hackles rose and it growled, a surprisingly threatening sound coming from something so small. Yeah, Jackson thought, come on then, take me on, me and my tiny dog, we’re ready for you. He positioned himself on the pavement so that he could see both of the Land Cruiser guys at once. Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

‘We were just coming up to see you,’ one of them said. ‘Nice room, is it? Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside.’ He sounded disconcertingly like Jackson’s brother, same rough accent, same cynical undertone. Jackson’s own accent had been sanded down over the years and he wondered sometimes if he would have recognized his younger self if he heard him now.

‘Who are you?’ Jackson said. ‘And what do you want? Have you come here just to beat me up – for no discernible reason that I can see – or what?’

‘The what. We came for the what bit,’ the other one said. ‘But we’ll probably do the beating-up bit as well.’ Jokers, always the worst types.

‘Gentlemen, I think we’re at cross-purposes here,’ Jackson said. ‘You’re looking for that woman, the one you were after at the garage. I don’t know where she is.’

‘Do you think we’re stupid?’ the one who sounded like his brother said.

‘Well . . .’

‘It’s you we’re after.’

‘Me? What did I do?’

‘You’ve been sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong,’ Tweedledee said. ‘Asking questions all over the place.’

‘Someone’s got a message for you,’ Tweedledum said.

‘What, you’re a greeting cards firm now?’ Jackson said. Some people might think that when the odds seem stacked against you it’s a good idea to simply walk away rather than poke the enemy in the face with a big stick. Jackson got his big stick out and poked. ‘Don’t tell me, you’re a strippergram,’ he said to Tweedledum, who bent his knees, ready for battle. Tweedledee did his knuckle-flexing thing again. Cry havoc, Jackson thought.

Tweedledum suddenly launched himself at Jackson, barrelling into him at full tilt, knocking him like a top, and before he could even respond to this sudden joust, Tweedledee punched him hard on the side of his head. Jackson reeled round but at least he managed to land a punch on Tweedledum’s nose. ‘Touché,’ he managed to say before Tweedledee started pummelling him in the stomach.

Jackson found himself on the ground, all he could hear was the dog barking furiously. He wanted to tell it to stop before it got hurt, these guys probably wouldn’t think twice about kicking it into touch.

Then the one who sounded like his dead brother spoke, startlingly close to his ear. ‘The message, you southern smart-arse, is to leave Carol Braithwaite alone. And if you don’t, then this is just going to keep on happening.’ Jackson wanted to protest, worse than being punched to the ground was the idea that the confrères of his native county couldn’t recognize him as one of their own. Unfortunately, before he could say anything one of those confrères kicked him in the head and darkness fell for a second time that night for Jackson.

Toowit-toowoo. Not really. It was more like kewick . . . oo-oo. A female calling, a male answering. Very territorial birds, owls. Tracy only knew that because there was a book about British birds on the bookshelf. ‘Holiday cottage’ was a bit of a misnomer, the place was huge, she seemed to have overlooked that when she was booking it. ‘Designed by Burges’ it said, as was the church a couple of hundred yards away. Victorian Gothic. The house was in the middle of a medieval deer park. Extraordinary.

If they were to stay here for the full week they would be rattling around like two peas in an enormous pod. As it was, they were camping out for one night in the living room. Tracy didn’t want to get stuck up in the bedrooms, didn’t want to be batting blokes down staircases with her Maglite. Ground floor, quick escape out the back. The Saab was tucked away safely out of sight behind the house. No one would be looking for it here.

When they first arrived, earlier this afternoon, they had walked down a hill from the house to the man-made lake. There was a café overlooking the water and they sat outside and ate ice creams. They saved the ends of the cornets and fed them to a greedy goose. Tracy had had a Ladybird book called The Greedy Goose when she was a kid herself. Anyone looking at them would think that they were normal people on a day out. Mother and daughter. Imogen and Lucy.

When they finished their ice creams they walked through the water gardens, all the way to Fountains Abbey. Eighteenth-century landscaping, cascades and lakes and follies, nothing wrong with improving on nature in Tracy’s opinion. Gangs of tadpoles congregated at the edges of ponds, here and there the flicker of a little fish. Tracy thought about Harry Reynolds’s koi. Big expensive fish. Tracy couldn’t imagine buying a fish if you weren’t going to eat it.