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positioned in such a way as to conceal any occupants. Low voices were chuntering on, stopping, starting again and May assumed a spiritual-growth stroke chakra-cleansing session was in progress. Then, suddenly a voice cried out: ‘Oh God—why couldn’t you have left well alone! If they do a postmor—’ A vigorous shushing cut this short.
    The resulting silence seemed to May, standing as if bolted to the floor, quite stifling. Of a smothered, tightly wrapped quality. Then she understood from the rustle of a robe, rather than any footfall, that someone was coming around the screen. She jumped aside just in time, flattening herself against the corridor wall, and the door was firmly closed.
    Trembling with surprised distress, May continued to stand there. She had hardly recognised the Master’s voice, so choked had it been with emotion. Whether anger or fear it was hard to say. Could have been either. Or both. She struggled to persuade herself that she had misunderstood or that the words, taken out of context (and she had heard none of the context), could have quite a different meaning from the one apparent. But to what could the words ‘post mortem’ apply except Jim’s death? The inference was surely inescapable.
    In the laundry room, pouring ecologically sound enzyme-free pale green washing granules, May silently railed against the malevolent sprite who had directed her steps that morning. For, like the majority of the community, she firmly believed that the shape and disposition of her day was ordered not by herself but by her stars and she couldn’t say she’d not been warned. Zurba, moon of Mars, had been skidding about from here to breakfast all week.
    When the time came to take out the dripping piles of brilliantly coloured washing, May couldn’t help reflecting on the contrast between their freshly rinsed unstained perfection and her own darkly blemished thoughts.
    And then, about a month after this, another almost equally disturbing thing occurred. She had been awoken in the middle of the night by a soft bump in Jim’s room, which was next to her own. This was quickly followed by two more as if a chest of drawers was gently being opened and closed. May had heard someone moving around there on a couple of occasions during the day but had thought nothing of it, assuming that whoever it was would be about the sad task of sorting out Jim’s things preparatory to their disposal. But this nocturnal prowling was something else. Guessing at burglars, she had bravely taken up her heaviest tome (New Maps of Atlantis and Her Intergalactic Logoi) , crept along the corridor and, holding her breath, with fingers pinched tight around the handle, gently tried Jim’s door. It was locked.
    Silent though her pressure had been, May heard a sudden flurry of movement. Although alarmed she stood firm, holding New Maps high above her head. But the door remained closed. Uncertain what to do next, still listening, she heard a metallic grating sound and realised it was the window latch. She rushed back to her room but by the time she had put down the book and reached her own window it was too late. Next door’s casement gaped wide and she was convinced she saw a shadow, a dark disturbance, at the end of the terrace.
    This made her rethink her assumption that the next step would be to raise the alarm. For whoever it was had not made for the street and the outside world. It would have been easy enough for them to do so for, like many other large Elizabethan houses, the Manor was only a modest distance from the main village street. There had been a bit of halfhearted vandalism a few months before (some bulbs uprooted, rubbish thrown in the pond), and the Lodge had purchased a halogen lamp which switched itself on after dusk if a person or vehicle appeared on or near the drive. It was not on now.
    Doubly disturbed, May rested on her window seat and gazed out into the perfumed night