‘All right, then.’ Huw went to sit on his desk, next to the TV, and leaned forward, hands clasped. ‘Merrily?’

He was bound to ask her, the only female in the group. On the TV screen the woman with one closed eye looked blurred and stupid.

‘Well,’ Merrily said, ‘she isn’t faking that injury, is she?’

‘How do you think she got the injury, Merrily?’

‘Do we get to see the husband?’

‘You think he beat her up?’

‘I’d like to know what he has to say.’

Huw said nothing, looked down at his clasped hands.

‘And see what kind of guy he is.’

Huw still didn’t look at her. There was quiet in the stone room.

There’d been a lot of that. Quite often the course had the feeling of a retreat: prayer and contemplation. Merrily was starting to see the point: it was about being receptive. While you had to be pragmatic, these weren’t decisions which in the end you could make alone.

Beyond the diamond panes, the horn of the moon rose over a foothill of Pen-y-fan.

‘OK.’

Huw stepped down. His face was deeply, tightly lined, as though the lines had been burned in with hot wire, but his body was still supple and he moved with a wary grace, like an urban tomcat.

‘We’ll take another break.’ He switched off the TV, ejected the tape. ‘I’d like you to work out between you how you yourselves would proceed with this case. Who you’d involve. How much you’d keep confidential. Whether you’d move quickly, or give the situation a chance to resolve itself. Main question, is she lying? Is she deluded? Merrily, you look like you could do with another ciggy. Come for a walk.’

2

Fluctuation

The mountains hunched around the chapel, in its hollow, like some dark sisterhood over a cauldron. You had to go to the end of the drive before you could make out the meagre lights of the village.