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afraid?’
    â€˜Did you find an answer?’ Sam asked.
    â€˜I did,’ Mildred replied with certainty. ‘He made me feel that way because I realized it wasn’t just any ordinary skinny angel he put me in mind of, wings or not.’
    Sam knew before she said the next words.
    â€˜He put me in mind,’ Mildred went on, ‘of the angel of death.’
    Sam looked down at her beside him on the bench, a surge of protectiveness sweeping him. She was a small woman, no more than five foot one, and most probably, he thought, slightly built beneath the layers of clothing.
    â€˜We’re going to be putting on extra patrols in the area,’ he told her, ‘for the next few nights at least, but I’m not sure I like the idea of you staying out here alone.’
    Mildred looked up at him. ‘Planning on arresting me, Samuel?’
    â€˜No, ma’am,’ he said.
    â€˜This is my home.’ She gestured around them, at the grass and trees and the sandy promenade and dunes and the beach beyond. ‘This is my freedom.’
    â€˜I know that,’ Sam said.
    â€˜I can’t endure walls,’ Mildred said. ‘Not since Donny.’
    She had said as much before, though never expanding on it, and Sam had no reason not to believe her, nor the slightest wish to disrupt her, let alone cause her distress.
    â€˜Would you do me one favour?’ he asked.
    â€˜If I can.’
    â€˜If I give you a cell phone with my numbers programmed into it, will you promise to use it?’
    â€˜You mean if I see him again?’ Mildred asked.
    â€˜And if you’re ever scared again,’ Sam said.
    She smiled again. ‘Where am I supposed to charge this thing?’
    Nobody’s fool, Mildred.
    â€˜I could get it charged up at the office,’ Sam said.
    â€˜I wouldn’t be using it much, I guess,’ Mildred said.
    â€˜We could arrange to pick it up every few days.’
    â€˜That would mean you’d be having to know where I am.’
    â€˜It would,’ Sam agreed. ‘Sometimes.’
    Mildred thought for another moment.
    â€˜I think,’ she said, ‘I could live with that, Samuel.’

8
    â€˜ I wish,’ Grace said, towards evening, ‘you’d tell me what’s happened.’
    â€˜I told you,’ Claudia said. ‘I needed a break.’
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜And I wanted to see my sister and her family.’
    â€˜And we’re happy to see you,’ Grace said. ‘Or Sam would be if he were here.’
    The baby was asleep up in the nursery, and they were back in the kitchen. Outside, the storm that had been threatening all afternoon was blowing the palms and flowers and soaking the land, but in here an aromatic fish stew was simmering on the stove, and the sisters were at the big old oak table, sipping a good red Chianti and eating olives. Other than the playpen in one corner and the toys scattered around the room – and the doggy door installed last year after Woody had developed a bladder problem – little had changed in here since Claudia’s last visit. It was still a room with a rustic, homely feel, warm wood and copper pans, comfortable, richly woven cushions on the chairs and family photographs on the walls.
    It was just the two of them this evening, with Sam working on the new case; and Grace had been thinking of asking David and Saul to join them – Friday evenings were often family nights in the Becket household, with Jewish Sabbath candles being lit, a custom Sam had loved ever since David and Judy Becket had plucked him, aged seven, out of tragedy and adopted him – but then she’d figured that would have given Claudia the perfect excuse not to open up, and if there was anything Grace was certain of, it was that her sister needed to do exactly that.
    They’d both showered and changed a while ago, Grace into a long pale blue cotton T-shirt, Claudia into a comfortable tan linen