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Marie Maxwell might be very happy to have her occupied where she can keep an eye on her. Coffee?”
    Liz settled back in her chair.
    â€œWonderful!” Hugo Shawcross slumped back in his seat, rocking his chair perilously as he stretched his arms over his head. “Mama can be good, and the daughter can be ba-a-ad!” It came out as a bleating noise, sheeplike rather than sexy, which from the glance he gave Elodie was what was intended.
    â€œAnd what is this perfect role?” Elodie began loading the dishwasher as the coffee brewed. Her guest swivelled his chair around to face her.
    â€œLilith,” he said, with some difficulty. “Lilith, the greatest demoness of them all. Lilith!”
    â€œAh, Lilith.” Liz’s clear, resonant singer’s voice floated over the heads of Elodie and Hugo Shawcross. “Just about the oldest-known demon in folklore.”
    Always nice to turn heads , thought Liz, and both Elodie and Hugo were now staring at her in surprise. She had her audience, so the little lady decided to hold forth.
    â€œOf course, that is how men want to see her, as the betrayer of Adam left on his ownsome in the Garden of Eden, the baby-blood-sucking killer, seducer of men with her voracious sexual appetite, draining them dry. I think she got fed up with Adam pushing her around and got out from under. If you’ll pardon the expression. I think she’s great. In the gym change room I just chatted with Marla, fresh from the shower and in the altogether, and she’ll fit the bill perfectly.”
    Liz smiled serenely and waited for a response. It came.
    â€œFeminist claptrap.” Hugo Shawcross got up from his chair with some difficulty. His voice was shaking, with anger or red wine, or both. “In Sumerian mythology —”
    â€œI thought that was now disputed.” Liz got up and went across to where Elodie was standing, holding the cafetière in stunned silence. She poured herself a cup of coffee, handed the pot back to Elodie and returned to her seat. “And after you’ve had great sex with an archangel, I doubt you’d want to go back to a mere mortal. I wouldn’t.”
    â€œCoffee, Hugo?” The banality of Elodie’s query landed on deaf ears. Hugo was weaving his way to the back door, stopping en route to pick up his play-script.
    Liz got up and followed him. Given Mrs. Maxwell’s enquiry and her recent conversation with Marla, it might be as well to make her peace with Hugo Shawcross. “I think a play about vampires will be a huge hit for the Island Players. Sorry I went on like that, but in my job you tend to question things all the time.”
    â€œYou are an academic?” Hugo looked as if, suddenly, this explained everything.
    â€œNo, far from it.” Liz laughed. “I’m a detective sergeant — I’m in the police force.”
    At her words, Hugo Shawcross seemed to sober up instantly. “The police force,” he repeated. He mumbled a few words of thanks at Elodie, who rushed to open the door for him as he fumbled with the latch. On the threshold, he turned and said, “Not all about sex, vampirism, not all about sex.” He pointed a quivering finger past her in Liz’s direction. “In the end, in the beginning, it’s always about the blood.”
    Behind him, an owl hooted with melodramatic timing.
    â€œWas it something I said?” Liz was laughing.
    â€œWhere in the name of — Lucifer? — did all that come from?” Elodie sat down on the sofa in her little sitting-room, and surveyed her niece.
    Liz held out the bottle of cognac Elodie had been planning to offer with the coffee. “Gandalf drank most of the wine, so I think I can risk a little of this in my coffee. Can I pour you some, El?”
    â€œPlease. No coffee for me. Are you taking some sort of university correspondence course in demonology?”
    â€œGod, no! I’m as ignorant as I