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pus. She sighed. They paid well, her customers, and she was happy to help them with their pain, but sometimes she wished there was someone who would help her. Someone to bring her warm soothing possets in the evening, someone to help her change her old woollen gown when the ache in her arms made her cry as she tried to pull it over her head, someone who would take over the garden for her before it ran riot for the last time and took her by the throat and strangled her. She gave a hoarse chuckle at the thought. As long as the plants survived she supposed it was all right. They didn’t need to be as neat as they were when she had first planted out her little medicinal garden. And they would probably outlive her. And Sarah came when she could with a basket of food or a warm shawl or a jug of ale. Sarah, daughter of the manor, her suckling child, the little girl who had replaced her own dead baby at her breast. She pulled her small shears out of her pocket and snipped and cut and tugged at the leaves until the basket was overflowing.
    The cat had followed her. It stopped near a patch of catnip and threw itself headfirst into the clump, rolling ecstatically amongst the aromatic leaves and she chuckled again.
    On a shelf in the cottage she kept the utensils of her trade meticulously neat. Pestle and mortar, bowls, scoops and jugs, all washed and drained and clean. Baskets and bags of dried herbs hung on hooks from the ceiling beams and boxes were stacked carefully on a table in the corner. She set her basket of fresh pickings down on the table and went to check the fire. The iron pot of water hanging over the coals was nearly boiling.
    Jane Butcher’s medicine first.
    She worked on for a long time, conscious that the beam of sunlight coming through the kitchen door was moving steadily across the floor. Soon the sun would move round into the south and her kitchen would be shadowy again and cool. Squinting at the jug in her hand she tried to work faster. Once the sun had gone it was harder to see what she was doing and more and more often the thick black tinctures which came from her pots would spill across the scrubbed oak of her table.
    Once she stopped and stared at the door, listening. Had that been someone at the gate? She could hear the high-pitched alarm call of a mother bird telling her young to hide low in the nest – acry understood and acted on by every other bird in the garden. Perhaps it was the old cat which was causing such consternation. His roll in the catnip might have rejuvenated him enough to stalk a bird but somehow she doubted it. She frowned. Her hearing was still acute even if her eyes were growing dim. In the silence of the garden she could hear menace. Slowly putting down her jug and spoon she hobbled to the door and stood looking out. There was no one to be seen. The lane was empty. There was no sign of the cat. But somewhere something was wrong.
    Then she saw him, the man standing half hidden in the shade of the old pear tree in the hedge and she recognised him. It was one of Hopkins’s servants. She stared at him for a moment, puzzled. Why was he watching her? Seeing her turn towards him he drew back into the shadows and she saw him clench his fists into the sign against the evil eye before he turned and fled, and in spite of the warmth of the sun across her shoulders and the scents of the herbs around her she suddenly smelled the cold breath of fear.

6
     
     

     
    Pulling her MG into the car park near the Co-op Emma crawled slowly between tightly packed rows of cars trying to find a space. ‘Better to park there and walk up to the shop,’ the house agent had said. ‘There’s no parking along the High Street here and not much anywhere on a Saturday.’
    How right he was. The place was teeming. Someone backed out in front of her and she turned into the space with relief. She was exhausted. It had been a two-hour drive from London – a drive starting with a row with Piers …
    ‘I’m sorry. I