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the only one comes in here now,’ she says.
    Laura returns to her file. There, half an hour or so after Pat Kelly has told her George Holland never looked at another woman for forty years, she finds the love letters. They are tied together with string, and there’s a covering note dated October 10th 1955.
Doll has returned my letters. I will never see her again. I will not burn what remains of the greatest happiness I have ever known.
    She unties the string. The first folded sheet carries a single line written in erratic pencil.
Waiting in lake house 6oc. Doll.
    Then another folded sheet, an impulsive line in fluent ink.
Swear to be there if only for a quarter hour. I miss you every minute. G.
    Laura reads no more. These letters have no commercial value. She refolds the papers, re-ties the string.
    She walks through empty halls to the chapel. The heavy door swings open without a sound. Inside is a space as big as a city church, illuminated by the melancholy colours of Victorian stained glass. The memorial to the second Lady Edenfield is halfway down the north wall, a marble effusion of urn and drapery presided over by a life-size angel. Laura tracks the carved inscription below for a date of death.
    October 2nd 1955.
    Eight days later her husband brought his liaison to an end. His forty years of devoted celibacy, it seems, formed the long coda not only to his marriage but to his adultery. Other people’s lives always so much more complicated than they seem.
    My own life so much more complicated than it seems.
    She sits in a mahogany pew and stares unseeingly at the altar furnishings. Only words on paper: but words, paper, these are the constituents of high explosive. Libraries not dry as supposed, not dusty, but coursing with blood, hissing with passion. She has learned in the course of her work to love libraries, to find in long-untouched books the shivery excitement of waking the dead. Now she learns they can destroy the living.
    Shall we meet and compare notes on the vagaries of life’s journey?
    Billy Holland is in the little room he calls his office, though it also contains a single high bed that has an air of being slept in. He is seated at his desk, reading glasses low on his nose, hands clasping greying temples. As Laura enters his big blank eyes rise up to meet hers, and he blinks as if emerging from sleep.
    ‘Oh, Laura. Hello.’
    ‘Sorry to bother you, Billy. I found something I thought you should see.’
    ‘How much is it worth?’
    ‘Nothing of any value, I’m afraid. Even so.’
    She holds out the string-tied bundle.
    ‘I’m relying on you, Laura. Rumple— Rumple—’
    He waves one hand in the air to grasp the elusive word.
    ‘Rumpelstiltskin?’
    ‘That’s the fellow. Weave straw into gold.’
    He reads the covering note. Bewilderment spreads slowly over his mottled face.
    ‘What is this? I don’t understand.’
    ‘I found them in one of the letter files. I’ve not looked at them, beyond a first glance.’
    He nods, and begins to untie the string. His fingers fumble helplessly. She leans over the desk, and with quick precise movements releases the knots. Easy to do for other people.
    She leaves him reading the letters in silence.

7
    There was a note waiting for her in her pigeon-hole in the porter’s lodge. The handwriting was unfamiliar and there was no name at the end.
4pm. Came to see you but you’re not here. If you come to see me I’ll be there.
    She knew at once the note was from Nick Crocker, without entirely knowing how she knew. She showed it to Katie, who was indignant.
    ‘Why can’t he put his name? It’s ridiculous.’
    Laura wanted to say that it wasn’t ridiculous at all, that it was both a test and a declaration. He was saying to her: if you know who I am then I’m right about you. If I’m right about you, we’ll meet again. And it was more than that, it was a promise. I’ll be there .
    ‘He doesn’t know when you’ll call on him. He doesn’t know he’ll be