Leaving her bags on the landing, she opens the door into the first of the suite of rooms on the canal side of the building, the only one still in use. The great space is dark, the shutters tightly fastened. Surely she opened them before going out? Or was that yesterday? A noise behind her makes her start and look round, but it is only one of her plastic shopping bags subsiding. An apple tumbles over the collapsed rim and rolls away towards the edge of the top step. Just beyond, at the bottom of the long flight of stairs, its long bony arm upraised and pointing at her, stands a skeleton.

She runs inside the salon, slams the door shut and leans back against it, panting for breath. Which possibility is worse, that the skeleton is not real, or that it is? Nothing more happens. There is no sound. It is a very long time before she can force herself to open the door, eyes tightly closed. When she opens them, the portego, the landing, the stairs and the hallway below are all empty.

Ada retrieves the errant apple, picks up the bags and carries them through the lounge to the kitchen. There is just enough light seeping in through the shutters to see her way. In the distance she can hear the shouts of the men working on the Pagan house. She leaves the shopping on the kitchen table and returns to the salon, reaching for the light switch. There is a searing flash and the skeleton stands before her, inside the room now, its claw-like paw outstretched towards her, the skull hidously grinning.

A hand grasps her shoulder. She whirls round. Facing her, at waist level, is a child with long blonde hair and a smooth, round alabaster face of utter purity and stillness, the very image of Rosetta. Moaning, weeping, Ada blunders across the room, bumping heavily into the skeletal form, scrabbling at the telephone.