“No, well, I can understand that,” said Strike. “You were ill, were you?”

“Gwilherm said I had to,” was her only response.

If he’d still been in the Special Investigation Branch, there would have been a female officer with him for this interview. Strike wondered what her IQ was.

“Did you ever meet Dr. Bamborough?” he asked. “She was,” he hesitated, “a lady doctor.”

“I’ve never seen a lady doctor,” said Deborah, with what sounded like regret.

“D’you know whether Gwilherm ever met Dr. Bamborough?”

“She died,” said Deborah.

“Yes,” said Strike, surprised. “People think she died, but no one knows for s—”

One of the budgerigars made the little bell hanging from the top of its cage tinkle. Both Deborah and Samhain looked around, smiling.

“Which one was it?” Deborah asked Samhain.

“Bluey,” he said. “Bluey’s cleverer’n Billy Bob.”

Strike waited for them to lose interest in the budgerigars, which took a couple of minutes. When both Athorns’ attention had returned to their hot chocolates, he said,

“Dr. Bamborough disappeared and I’m trying to find out what happened to her. I’ve been told that Gwilherm talked about Dr. Bamborough, after she went missing.”

Deborah didn’t respond. It was hard to know whether she was listening, or deliberately ignoring him.

“I heard,” said Strike—there was no point not saying it; this was the whole reason he was here, after all—“that Gwilherm told people he killed her.”

Deborah glanced at Strike’s left ear, then back at her hot chocolate.

“You’re like Tudor,” she said. “You know what’s what. He probably did,” she added placidly.

“You mean,” said Strike carefully, “he told people about it?”

She didn’t answer.

“… or you think he killed the doctor?”

“Was My-Dad-Gwilherm doing magic on her?” Samhain inquired of his mother. “My-Dad-Gwilherm didn’t kill that lady. My uncle Tudor told me what really happened.”

“What did your uncle tell you?” asked Strike, turning from mother to son, but Samhain had just crammed his mouth full of chocolate biscuit, so Deborah continued the story.

“He woke me up one time when I was asleep,” said Deborah, “and it was dark. He said, ‘I killed a lady by mistake.’ I said, ‘You’ve had a bad dream.’ He said, ‘No, no, I’ve killed her, but I didn’t mean it.’”

“Woke you up to tell you, did he?”

“Woke me up, all upset.”

“But you think it was just a bad dream?”

“Yes,” said Deborah, but then, after a moment or two, she said, “but maybe he did kill her, because he could do magic.”

“I see,” said Strike untruthfully, turning back to Samhain.

“What did your Uncle Tudor say happened to the lady doctor?”

“I can’t tell you that,” said Samhain, suddenly grinning. “Uncle Tudor said not to tell. Never.” But he grinned with a Puckish delight at having a secret. “My-Dad-Gwilherm did that,” he went on, pointing at the ankh on the wall.

“Yes,” said Strike, “your mum told me.”

“I don’t like it,” said Deborah placidly, looking at the ankh. “I’d like it if the walls were all the same.”

“I like it,” said Samhain, “because it’s different from the other walls… you silly woman,” he added abstractedly.

“Did Uncle Tudor—” began Strike, but Samhain, who’d finished his biscuit, now got to his feet and left the room, pausing in the doorway to say loudly,

“Clare says it’s nice I still got things of Gwilherm’s!”

He disappeared into his bedroom and closed the door firmly behind him. With the feeling he’d just seen a gold sovereign bounce down a grate, Strike turned back to Deborah.

“Do you know what Tudor said happened to the doctor?”

She shook her head, uninterested. Strike looked hopefully back toward Samhain’s bedroom door. It remained closed.

“Can you remember how Gwilherm thought he’d killed the doctor?” he asked Deborah.

“He said his magic killed her, then took her away.”

“Took her away, did it?”

Samhain’s bedroom door suddenly opened again and he trudged back into the room, holding a coverless book in his hand.

“Deborah, is this My-Dad-Gwilherm’s magic book, is it?”

“That’s it,” said Deborah.

She’d finished her hot chocolate, now. Setting down the empty mug, she picked up her crochet again.

Samhain held the book wordlessly out to Strike. Though the cover had come off, the title page was intact: The Magus by Francis Barrett. Strike had the impression that being shown this book was a mark of esteem, and he therefore flicked through it with an expression of deep interest, his main objective to keep Samhain happy and close at hand for further questioning.

A few pages inside was a brown smear. Strike halted the cascade of pages to examine it more closely. It was, he suspected, dried blood, and had been wiped across a few lines of writing.

This I will say more, to wit, that those who walk in their sleep, do, by no other guide than the spirit of the blood, that is, of the outward man, walk up and down, perform business, climb walls and manage things that are otherwise impossible to those that are awake.

“You can do magic, with that book,” said Samhain. “But it’s my book, because it was My-Dad-Gwilherm’s, so it’s mine now,” and he held out his hand before Strike could examine it any further, suddenly jealous of his possession. When Strike handed it back, Samhain clutched the book to his chest with one hand and bent to take a third chocolate biscuit.

“No more, Sammy,” said Deborah.

“I went in the rain and got them,” said Samhain loudly. “I can have what I want. Silly woman. Stupid woman.”

He kicked the ottoman, but it hurt his bare foot, and this increased his sudden, childish anger. Pink-faced and truculent, he looked around the room: Strike suspected he was looking for something to disarrange, or perhaps break. His choice landed on the budgies.

“I’ll open the cage,” he threatened his mother, pointing at it. He let The Magus fall onto the sofa as he clambered onto the seat, looming over Strike.

“No, don’t,” said Deborah, immediately distressed. “Don’t do that, Sammy!”

“And I’ll open the window,” said Samhain, now trying to walk his way along the sofa seats, but blocked by Strike. “Hahaha. You stupid woman.”

“No—Samhain, don’t!” said Deborah, frightened.

“You don’t want to open the cage,” said Strike, standing up and moving in front of it. “You wouldn’t want your budgies to fly away. They won’t come back.”

“I know they won’t,” said Samhain. “The last ones didn’t.”

His anger seemed to subside as fast as it had come, in the face of rational opposition. Still standing on the sofa, he said grumpily, “I went out in the rain. I got them.”