Alex nodded. 'He said "Hi, Mum". I told him I was surprised to see him back so soon; he said he was tired and was going to get some sleep. He was in his room this morning when I left.'

  'You saw him again?'

  Alex stared directly into the policeman's eyes. 'No, I didn't see him; the door was shut, and I didn't want to wake him.'

  'Then you went to the office?'

  She nodded.

  He made another note. 'What time did you leave?'

  'About quarter to nine.'

  'And what time does your cleaning lady come?'

  'About nine-fifteen.'

  'Was she on time this morning?'

  'I'll ask her.' Alex went out of the room. 'Mimsa!' she called. Mimsa, intent on her hoovering, did not hear. Alex tapped her on the shoulder. 'Mimsa!'

  The cleaning woman jumped. 'The second fright you give me today. We don't got no Vim. You forgot?'

  Alex nodded. 'Sorry, I'll try to remember.'

  'The winnow cleaner no come. He lazy bassard.'

  'Mimsa � what time did you get here this morning? It's very important.'

  'This morning, I early. Five to nine. I catch earlier bus � I don' normally catch it, 'cos have to make husban' breakfast; he no have breakfast this morning � got to go to the doctor for the tests, so I catch early; I go early too if O.K.?'

  'Fine.' Alex nodded and went back into the drawing room. 'She was here at five to nine.'

  'Only ten minutes after you left?'

  Alex nodded.

  'Forgive me, this may sound a little rude � do you think you might have imagined your son coming home � dreamt it perhaps?'

  The phone rang; she listened for a second to the shrill echoing of the bell, the very normality of it calming her down. She picked up the receiver. 'Hallo?'

  'Hi, darling, sorry about that.'

  She wished her husband would stop calling her darling; she wasn't his darling any more; why did he keep having to pretend that everything was all right between them?

  'I was right in the middle of a crucial experiment � I've got a catalyst that I think is going to enable me to produce a Chardonnay to rival Chablis; and it'll be cheaper. Can you imagine a really good British Chablis?'

  'Sounds very exciting,' she said, flatly.

  'I'm talking about Premier Cru Chablis, at least! Did you sleep O.K. last night?'

  'Yes,' she said, surprised. 'Fine. Did you get down all right?'

  'Yes, no problems � can you hold on a second?'

  Alex heard voices shouting in the background.

  'Listen, darling, I've got to get back to the lab - there's a slight problem � it's turning brown. Actually I had a weird dream � well I didn't think it was a dream but it must have been. I was woken up by it, about six this morning; I could have sworn that Fabian came into my bedroom. He said "Hi, Dad", then disappeared. I looked all over the house for him when I woke up, I was so convinced I'd seen him. This country life can't be doing me much good after all � I must be cracking up!'

  CHAPTER FIVE

  She stared at the light oak coffin, with its brass handles, and the red roses that lay on top of it; at the shafts of sunlight playing through the stained glass window; at the kindly face of the clergyman at the lectern. 'Now we see through a glass darkly,' he read, calmly, serenely.

  They were picking up the coffin now, they picked it up easily. Her son was in that; she wondered what he looked like. They hadn't let David see him when he'd gone to France. Too badly burned to identify, they had said. She felt David's hand tugging now. Do I have to stand, she thought, panicking suddenly. Do I have to walk down that aisle, in front of those staring faces? Then she remembered they were friends, all friends, and she followed her husband, lamely, through the haze of tears she was trying to hold back, outside and into the black Daimler.

  The cortege stopped in front of the neat red-brick crematorium; they got out into the sunlight and stood silently watching the pall-bearers unload the coffin. Two men took the roses off around the corner, and the others carried the coffin into the building and set it down in front of the dark blue curtains. Alex walked up to the coffin and laid a single red rose on the lid. She spoke quietly, with her head bowed. 'Goodbye, darling.'

  She walked back and sat in the front pew beside David. She knelt and closed her eyes, trying to find some prayers, but could think of nothing; she heard the building filling with people and the soft organ music. She tried to listen to the words of the committal service, but could hear nothing, nothing but the sudden click and hum of the blue curtains sliding apart and the coffin starting to move slowly through them.

  She felt uncomfortable at the wake, standing in the crush of people in her house, and drained a glass of champagne straight down. A bottle popped loudly, near her ear, frothing and spraying, and she was swept backwards helplessly in the retreating surge of people, like being carried on a huge wave, she thought.

  'I'm sorry, Alex,' said a woman in a black veil whom she did not recognize.

  'He was a nice chap,' said Alex. 'They never take the shits, do they?' She fumbled for her cigarettes. Through the crowd she saw Sandy making towards her, her hair a mad cauldron of tangled jet-black strands held vaguely together with what looked like knitting needles. Instinctively she turned away; Sandy's theatrical emotions were more than she could cope with right now. She saw Otto's sharp bird-of-prey face staring down at her, hideously lacerated, a mass of weals and sticking plasters. 'Thank you for coming. Otto,' she said.

  He nodded, gave a half-smile that turned into a cruel grin. 'Fabian asked me to,' he said.

  Alex stared at him, but he turned away from her, back to his conversation.

  She closed the door on the last of the guests, took another drag on her cigarette and another long pull on the glass. She was feeling better, from the buzz of the drink, from the cheer of the friends and family who had been around. Only David still lingered, lurking in the entrance to the kitchen, leaning against the wall, glass in his hand. 'Would you like me to stay?' he said.

  'No, David.'

  'I don't think you should be alone tonight.'

  'I really would prefer to be on my own. Please; I have to get over this my way.'

  'Why don't you come down to Lewes?'

  'I'll be O.K. here.'

  David shrugged. 'I suppose you blame me.'

  'Blame you?'

  'For buying him the car.'

  'No. Accidents happen; I don't think it would have made any difference, whatever the car.'

  'If he had been going a bit slower?'

  Alex smiled and shook her head.

  David picked up a bottle and poured into his glass; only a dribble came out. He looked at the label. 'Veuve Clicquot.'

  'Fabian's favourite; he always thought it was a smart champagne.'

  'The widow Clicquot.' He paused, looked awkwardly at Alex, and blushed. He sniffed the wine. 'Could have done with a bit more bottle age.'

  'I'm sorry,' said Alex. 'Perhaps if you'd asked him he might have waited a couple of years before he died.' She walked past him into the kitchen and switched on the kettle. David followed her and put his arm gently around her.

  'You know,' he said, 'it's incredible we should have both had the same dream about him, at the same time. I've been thinking about that.'

  'It must have been about the rime he died,' said Alex.

  'Most extraordinary coincidence.'

  Alex opened the jar of Nescafe and spooned some into two cups. 'Still taking sugar?'

  'One spoon.'

  'You think it was coincidence?' she said, testily.

  David held the glass up to the light and examined the colour carefully. 'You know I'm sure this used to be a deeper yellow. I wonder if they've cut the ageing time down � or perhaps I'm mistaken. The bouquet's fine.'

  Alex glared at him. 'You think it was coincidence?'

  'Coincidence?' he said blankly. 'Ah, yes, well of course.' He caught the look in her eyes. 'Oh, come on now, Alex, you think it was something else?'

  She shrugged. 'It was very strange; it was just so real.'

  'We'll have to let Cambridge know,' he said, changing the subject.

  'I hadn't thought of that.'

  'I'll call them tomorrow.'

  'I'd better write to Charles and Henry's parents too.'

  'Yes.'

  They sat opposite each other and drank their coffee. 'How's your Chardonnay?' said Alex.

  David smiled. 'One step forward, two steps back; can't get it to stabilize. How's the agency?'

  'Busy.'

  'Got any blockbusters on the stocks?'

  'An anthology of Urdu war chants.'

  'Is that what the world's been waiting for?'

  'I doubt it.'

  He raised his eyebrows. 'I'm thinking of writing a book on wine.'

  'Good subject,' she said. 'I've only had sixty-four manuscripts on wine land on my desk this year.'

  David stood up. 'You know what they say, sixty-fifth time lucky.'

  Alex smiled. 'Give me a call when you get home.'

  'You want me to?'

  'I want to know you've arrived safely.' She kissed him and closed the door, and suddenly felt very alone.

  The hallway was dark, with its sombre black and white tiles and high ceiling, and she switched on the light. She walked into the drawing room, with its thick pallor of smoke and perfume and the vinous acidity of the champagne, - parted the net curtains and looked through the bay window at the street; the colour had drained out of the clear sky and it was now a darkening wash. She thought again of Otto's strange words, 'Fabian asked me to'. Something moved behind her, suddenly. She sensed it, and felt fear, stronger than any fear she had ever felt before; she was cold and her skin was prickling, bristling with cold needles. She felt the room closing in on her and she wanted to tap on the window, shout for help, but she was paralysed. She saw a shadow moving out of the corner of her eye, rising from a chair behind her.

  'Oh darling, excuse me, I must have dozed off,' said the shadow.

  She stared, transfixed, as she suddenly realized it was Sandy.

  'Quite overcome by the emotion of it all � I'm on these tranquillizers, you see, and they just don't go with booze.' She yawned, and stretched. 'Has everyone gone?'

  'Yes.' Alex said, weakly. She switched on a table lamp, and felt comforted by the warm glow as the colour came back to the room. 'You gave me a fright.'

  'I'm sorry, darling.' Sandy blinked, then prodded her haystack of black hair with her fingers, and adjusted a couple of the knitting needles.

  'Like some coffee?' said Alex, relieved, and grateful now for the company, even, she thought, Sandy's.

  'I'd love some. What are you doing tonight?'

  'Nothing.'

  'What � you're going to be here on your own?'

  Alex nodded. 'I want to be alone.'

  'You can't, darling, not tonight.'

  'I have been every other night; I don't mind it.'

  They walked through to the kitchen. Alex suddenly found herself acutely aware of the objects that were in the house, as if she had entered a museum. She saw the stern portrait of David's great-grandfather in his cavalry uniform. 'Fabian has his eyes,' David used to boast proudly, and she had always demurred, there was no point in disillusioning him, no point in spoiling the pretence. Only she knew that Fabian had inherited nothing of David's, not one single gene; it was her secret, and she had kept it for twenty-two years.

  'Dreadful,' said Sandy. 'The whole thing. There were two other boys also who ...?'

  Alex nodded. 'Brothers. Charles and Henry Heathfield.'

  'Shocking. So shocking. What a terrible thing. A lorry on the wrong side of the motorway, wasn't it?'

  'A car,' said Alex.

  Sandy frowned. 'I was certain it said lorry in the paper.'

  'It did. They got it wrong.'

  'A drunk Frenchman?'

  Alex nodded.

  'How can anyone drive down the wrong side of an Autoroute? However drunk they are?'

  The kettle clicked.

  'Do you know anything about him, darling?'

  'No, not really,' said Alex. 'Apparently he'd had a row with his wife and stormed out. Been drinking all night; his business was going bust. Soft toys, or something.' She shrugged. 'David knows more about it.'

  'Dreadful.'

  Alex carried the cups through into the drawing room, and they sat down. Her head was beginning to ache, and she closed her eyes.

  'I think you should see a medium, darling,' said Sandy, staring down at the swirling coffee, trying to dissolve the last of the grains. 'A medium?' 'Yes.'

  'No, Sandy, that's not for me; I'm afraid I don't believe in that sort of stuff.'

  'I think you do.'

  'You think I do?' she said, incredulous.

  'You're a Christian; so you believe in life everlasting.'

  'I'm not sure that I do.' Alex stared at the nervy mess of a woman sitting opposite, who was now trying to push a cigarette into the end of a long thin holder and was having a harder time than if she were trying to thread a needle. The girl she had known since schooldays, mad, cranky, but kind; a girl who had been through three divorces, who had been a drug addict, an alcoholic, a Christian Scientist, a vegan, who had meditated under the Maharishi Yogi and tried virtually every other religion under the sun, who had made just about every kind of a mess of her life it was possible to make; this girl was trying to give her some advice.

  'David told me that Fabian came to see him the morning he died, and he came to see you too.'

  'We both had the same dream.'

  'Dream?' She shook her head. �That wasn't a dream, darling, he came to see you; very common occurrence.'

  'What do you mean?'

  Sandy stared at her, her thin tortured face that had once been so pretty, but was now looking so jaded and her huge blue eyes, like forgotten ponds, she thought. 'We all have spirit guides, darling, keeping a watch on us, but they're not around all the time. If someone dies suddenly, when the guides aren't expecting it, they can lose contact and the person's spirit can wander around, lost. That may have happened to Fabian; that's why you both saw him; he was trying to get his bearings.'

  Alex sipped her coffee and stared at her friend with a mixture of contempt and pity.

  'You think I'm an old crank, darling, don't you, someone who's made a mess of their life? Well, maybe I have in your terms, but I've had lots of other lives, some extremely happy ones, and I've been sent back this time in order to learn to cope better with rough times. I'm an old spirit, darling, I'm toughened to it all; you're not, I can tell, you're a young spirit, and you must accept my help, that's one of the things I'm here for, to help others.'

  Alex shook her head. She felt tired, suddenly, hemmed in, as if the room was full of people; she wanted to get away, go out of the front door, walk about outside. 'Maybe the dream was telepathy,' she said. 'That's possible, isn't it?'

  'It's possible, darling � plenty of that in the spirit world, but why should it be? We don't know much more about telepathy than we do about spirits. I think he came to you because he needed help.'

  'What sort of help?'

  'He may be all right now, darling; he may have been reunited with his guides, they may have taken him off. But if they haven't, then he could just be wandering around, lost.'

  'How long would he do that?'

  'Time has a different perspective on the other side, darling; it could be forever. You owe it to him to make sure he is all right, and try to help him if he isn't.'

  'How?'

  'By seeing a medium; a medium will know. If you do that, darling, then at least you will know you have done everything you can. I can put you in touch with an excellent one.' She paused and dragged hard on her cigarette holder; she blew the smoke out then flapped it away with her hand. 'You don't believe what I'm saying, do you, darling?'

  'No,' said Alex, shaking her head. 'No, I'm sorry, I don't.'

  CHAPTER SIX

  Alex woke suddenly, afraid. There was a light pulsating in the room; she felt her hair prickling, did not dare open her eyes, but instead, squeezed them even tighter shut, so she could not open them accidentally; she waited. Something was in the room, she could feel it.

  She saw the stark wood coffin, the red rose; her face suddenly began to feel hot; she smelt petrol fumes, then heat; her face was burning. Her breathing began to get out of control, she was panting, her knees were crashing together under the bedclothes. Her eyes sprang wide open. She sensed a green pulsating light. The light turned from a blur into sharp focus. Four noughts. On, off, on, off. The burning subsided and she felt only cold, and the fear began to subside too.

  She watched the dial on the alarm clock, the four noughts blinking on, off. Midnight, she thought. She looked around the room, saw the shapes, the familiar shapes. She'd been afraid of the dark when she was a child, always slept with the light on; but that fear had gone a long time ago, long before she'd married. The noughts blinked.

  She snapped on the bedside light; the room seemed normal, everything seemed normal, sounded normal. She heard a lorry in the distance, sloshing down the King's Road; it sounded as though it had been raining. She picked up her watch. Five o'clock, but the four noughts continued to blink. Then she remembered that had happened once before to her previous clock in a power cut; it had automatically reset itself to zero. She fumbled with it, trying to remember how to reset it, staring with tired, strained eyes at the blinking lights, and shivering in the cold. It was almost unbearably cold.

  She got out of bed and walked to the window, parted the heavy curtains and put a hand outside. The air there was warm and mild; she held her hand out, puzzled. She saw steam from her breath and let out a small shriek of surprise, felt the hair prickling again down her neck. She stared out through the curtains once more, at the parked cars, at the glow of the street lamp; it was calm out there, normal. She pulled the curtains apart slightly and let the orange light into the room. A floorboard creaked under her foot and she jumped. Then she climbed back into bed, pulled the clothes up and closed her eyes, but still she felt cold, bitterly cold, and the cold made her feel afraid. She picked up the telephone, listened to the hum as it pierced the silence, then she punched out the numbers that she knew by heart, and waited.